Food safety inspections shift again

Changes in state laws on food safety inspections left a bad taste in the mouth of Marc Yacht, the retired former director of the Pasco County Health Department.

Other state agencies were supposed to pick up the slack at Pasco area hospitals, nursing homes and child care facilities when the law went into effect July 1. But mass confusion about jurisdiction over food safety seemed to be the main result.

So health departments now are regaining powers to conduct kitchen hygiene inspections at child care facilities, at least for an interim period.

Yacht had been one of the most vocal critics of the little-known House Bill 5311. The intent had been to avoid duplication of food inspections among several agencies and perhaps save money in the process.

"The Pasco County Health Department is not currently doing food inspections for day care centers," agency spokeswoman Deanna Krautner wrote in a message sent Tuesday.

"At this point, we are waiting to receive directives and guidance from the FDOH in Tallahassee, in regards to these activities," Krautner wrote, referring to the Florida Department of Health.

The Department of Health forwarded a copy of a July 29 contract whereby health officials would conduct inspections on behalf of the Department of Children & Families. The department had been unprepared for the big shift in responsibility for on-site food safety inspections at thousands of licensed day care centers.

The agreement between the two state agencies can be renewed every 90 days.

"It's a good start," Yacht said of health department staffs resuming day care center inspections.

The Department of Health is phasing in the switch back.

Yacht remains concerned about the "most vulnerable population" at nursing homes not having a regular food and hygiene inspection program.

"Big hospitals have infectious disease programs and protocols that should require good sanitation in their kitchens," Yacht said, so inspection oversight at hospitals is less of a worry.

Unintended consequences seem to have plagued the new law from the start, Yacht and other critics say.

Most DCF inspectors have bachelor's degrees in social sciences, but they lack the training and experience for food inspections. The DOH inspectors have degrees in science or health and training in food safety.