Members of a DuPage County Board committee want to question county Health Department officials about their decision to begin charging school districts a fee for vision and hearing testing.
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The board’s Health and Human Services Committee agreed to seek an explanation for the decision at the request of board member Roger Kotecki (R-Glen Ellyn), who called the screening program a countywide public service for parents of school and preschool children.
About 61,500 children in DuPage were screened by the Health Department for vision problems in 1995-96, and about 71,700 were screened for hearing problems.
Board of Health members voted last month to charge school districts and private schools $2 a child for each test. beginning in September, to help defray the cost of the program. Health officials say their decision resulted in part from efforts to avoid property-tax increases.
Kotecki said the decision “doesn’t save the taxpayers a dollar” because it simply shifts the cost of the testing from the Health Department to local school districts.