The director of the Taney County Health Department says she is looking forward to 2025 being more normal than the last several years.

Lisa Marshall, during an interview on KRZK's "Ozarks Now" program, says that the department has been in a different mode since the outbreak of the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020. She said a lot of resources had been devoted to that and although the health department paused certain services for a brief time, when they returned they did operate more in the background do to the pandemic and even other viruses including the recent flu outbreak. Marshall says they look to reintroduce the public to their services including environmental testing and health inspections. 

Though the "Ozarks Now" interview was scheduled several weeks ago, Marshall did briefly address the release of information last week on the guilty plea of former Chief Operating Financial Officer for the Taney County Health Department Hugo Ricardo Huacuz who admitted to embezzling around $259,000 between 2022 and resigning the position in November of 2023. Marshall referred to the official statement issued on Friday since the case is not officially closed yet. Marshall did add as part of the interview that the health department is moving forward from that situation. 

That statement is below:
In November 2023, the Taney County Health Department (TCHD) discovered evidence of financial improprieties by an employee, who then resigned from the organization.  The TCHD investigated his actions and referred the matter to federal law enforcement.  The TCHD also instituted a number of additional protocols and accounting controls to prevent this from happening again.  The TCHD would like to sincerely thank the US Attorney’s Office, HHS-OIG, and FBI for their diligent work on this matter to ensure the return of stolen taxpayer funds and to hold the former employee accountable.

The full interview with Marshall as well as with Epidemiologist Cassandra Henne discussing recent flu numbers and prevention is below: