If Utah prevails in court, where will Planned Parenthood’s pulled funds go?

When Paul Johnson called his county health office last year seeking STD testing and treatment, the receptionist referred him to Planned Parenthood.

The county, he was told, already was overwhelmed by an outbreak of gonorrhea.

"You sometimes have what you think is a beautiful interchange with someone else," said Johnson, 45, "and it exposes you to something that's not so great."

That experience of Johnson's, a Salt Lake City property manager, demonstrates one piece of a multifaceted relationship between Utah government and the family-planning organization. It's a link that has grown stronger as the state Health Department tries to monitor and curb rising rates of sexually transmitted diseases — gonorrhea cases, for example, have shot up 500 percent in Salt Lake County in the past four years — by working with Planned Parenthood to develop a new STD reporting system.

Now, after Gov. Gary Herbert's order to block $272,000 in federal funds from going to the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, the relationship is less symbiotic.

Planned Parenthood sued the state in September, calling Herbert's decision "unconstitutional." Its attorneys are set to square off with the state's before the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Utah health officials are bracing for the possibility they'll have to tackle rising rates of sexually transmitted diseases without the organization's help.

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Though the Denver appeals court has allowed the money to continue to flow to Planned Parenthood as the case progresses, the governor's plan would allow the 3-year-old tracking program to expire before it moves past the testing phase — which, some fear, would prevent Utah from obtaining accurate data and creating targeted STD prevention efforts.

The STD surveillance would "help dramatically" in the fight against STDs, and losing the contract "would really hurt us," said Lynn Beltran, epidemiology supervisor for the Salt Lake County Health Department.

Utah was one of four states to receive a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant to streamline STD reporting, said Dave Mecham, state epidemiologist. The program received roughly $110,000 in 2014 and 2015.

"If that funding goes away," Beltran said, "I don't know who could put that project up."

The state has identified a handful of organizations that could receive money Planned Parenthood used for education programs if the court rules in the state's favor, but few have concrete plans.

The National Tongan American Society's director, Fahina Tavake-Pasi, said she has not heard any further word from the state on whether her group, named by the governor as a potential recipient, might get a boost to expand sex education. For the past five years, the society has offered twice-a-month sex-ed classes, with curriculum approved by the CDC, to a group of 15 kids ages 10 to 17.

Tavake-Pasi would welcome additional money to offer more frequent programs to more students, she said, but questioned the cut to Planned Parenthood.

"I don't know why they're attacking all of these programs that are so helpful to our children."

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The Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Salt Lake and the Centro Hispano are two more contenders for the funds.

During the past five years, Centro Hispano has received $100,000 in federal money through the state. The group runs sessions that review how to say no if a person is not ready to have sex, how to have safe sex and how to plan for the future.

Staffers visit correctional facilities to talk to at-risk groups ages 14 to 21, said Abraham Hernandez, education and health promotion coordinator. About 400 students participated last year.

The current federal funding to his center — through the same grant Planned Parenthood receives — pays for 2½ out of 10 employees.

"Receiving a bump would allow us to get more people trained," he said.

Hernandez also would like to create a class for parents of teens.

This kind of education is imperative, he said. "Our STD rates with gonorrhea and chlamydia are pretty high."

In Utah County, the number of chlamydia cases reached 1,017, up from roughly 960 the previous year; 140 cases of gonorrhea were recorded, notes Steve Mickelson, nursing director for the county Health Department.

"We're pretty busy," Mickelson said. And they rely predominately on local or federal assistance — not on money from the state. State funding for Mickelson's staff, for example, covers just four or five weeks of the department's yearly operating budget.

Local health departments like Mickelson's depend on the state lab in Salt Lake City to test most samples submitted for STD testing.

Another Planned Parenthood agreement with the state to conduct $75,000 worth of STD testing — 4,400 samples — at the state lab also would stop under the governor's order. The contract, said Utah Health Department spokesman Tom Hudachko, covered 16 percent of the lab's total cost last year.

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Utah County leaves sex education and abstinence lessons to schools and families, Mickelson said.

Last year, the state passed $120,000 in federal money to Planned Parenthood's comprehensive sex-education programs, which require parental permission. That money would go elsewhere if the appeals court backs U.S. District Court Judge Clark Waddoups' October ruling that Herbert was within his rights to pull the funds.

One option for those dollars might be the abstinence-focused Pregnancy Resource Center. Seven of the group's instructors visit sex-ed classes in the Granite School District, reaching about 3,000 students a year.

The center's own $69,000 in federal grant money covers 15 percent of its overall budget, said Director James Kerr.

"Not knowing" whether additional money will come in, Kerr said, "we've not made any plans."

His organization's stance on STDs is simple, however. "If you're abstaining from sex," Kerr said, "that's going to prevent them."

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The state health department has been "a good partner" to the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, said CEO Karrie Galloway. And though the $272,000 at stake is a small piece of the local affiliate's total $8 million budget, Galloway said, Utahns will lose out on comprehensive education and testing if the contracts end.

"Every dollar lost in federal funding is a dollar less available to provide services to the public," attorneys argued in court filings. "The funds at issue were planned for and allocated to particular services and programs — PPAU does not have a pot of gold it can tap to suddenly replace the lost funds."

Nor is the governor's assertion that he'll redistribute funds to other agencies "evidence that it will happen," the group said.

The group contends that a district court judge overstepped his authority and ignored evidence when he upheld Herbert's August decision.

State attorneys disagree. They argued successfully in Salt Lake City in October that the state had a right to cut the ties in order to avoid appearing corrupt.

Herbert was reacting to the release of videos showing national Planned Parenthood officials discussing reimbursement for fetal tissue used for scientific research — the footage gave him concerns the national group was "coloring outside the lines," he said.

After the release of the videos, multiple investigations found the organization did not break the law. A Texas jury indicted two with the California-based anti-abortion group that secretly recorded the videos.

Oral arguments are set to begin Tuesday at 9 a.m. in Denver.

aknox@sltrib.com

Twitter: @anniebknox