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Home My WebLink About11.15.2023 Board Meeting Minutes APPROVEDBOARD MINUTES UNIFIED COMMUNITY SERVICES Wednesday, November 15, 2023 Location: Iowa County Health & Human Services Building Community Room 303 W. Chapel St Dodgeville WI 53533 1. CALL TO ORDER: Joan Davis Unified Community Services Board Chair called the meeting to order at 6:00 PM. 2. OPEN MEETINGS LAW CERTIFICATION: Ben Biddick verified that meeting notice was sent to six newspapers including Grant County Herald Independent, and two radio stations in Grant and Iowa Counties. It was posted in four public locations (two offices of Unified Community Services and both County buildings). It was also posted on Grant and Iowa Counties’ and Unified Community Services’ websites. Notice was given that meeting will be conducted in person and via electronic videoconferencing. 3. ROLL CALL: 11 board members attended. MEMBERS PRESENT: Joan Davis (Chair), Carol Beals, John Beinborn (via Zoom), Janelle Carroll, Nancy Howard, Dawn Kendrick, Amy Kite (via Zoom), Steven Obershaw, Justin O’Brien, Gary Ranum, and Mike Tiber. MEMBERS ABSENT: None. OTHERS PRESENT: Holly Knapp, Jessica Munson, Ben Biddick, Robert Keeney (via Zoom), Kayzia Teal, David Stephens, Larry Burke, Mariah Zeier (via Zoom). 4. AGENDA: Mike Tiber moved to approve the agenda. Motion seconded by Steven Obershaw and passed unanimously. 5. MINUTES: Justin O’Brien moved to approve the minutes of the October 18, 2023 board meeting. Motion seconded by Gary Ranum and passed unanimously. 6. INTRODUCTIONS AND PUBLIC COMMENTS: Kayzia Teal shared more community members and client participants are needed for the Unified Community Services Coordination Committee Meetings. 7. PAYMENT OF THE BILLS: Report provided by Jessica Munson who reviewed high dollar amount items on the vouchers. Motion to accept and pay the bills for October by Nancy Howard. Motion seconded by Steven Obershaw and passed unanimously. 8. REPORTS: a) Holly Knapp presented the Director’s Report as follows: OPERATION GREEN LIGHT Unified Community Services honored Service Members, Veterans and their families at both office locations last week by light up our buildings green! Thank you to all of our staff, clients and community members and their families who have served in this way! IOWA COUNTY CLTS/APS SWAP Unified Community Services and Iowa County staff met to discuss the switch. Additional support and training will be provided by Unified Community Services. MOUs outlining the details have been finalized with a go live date of December 1, 2023. We appreciate Iowa county’s staff for their collaboration and support. RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION Culture and morale of staff continues to be heavily evaluated and monitored. Leadership team is discussing frame work for establishing a vision and goals for 2024. Leadership team continues to talk regularly about agency culture, retention, and creating healthy communication and logical workflows. Due to our growth, addition of programs, the complexities of our clinical positions and the counties we serve- we are having conversations about appropriateness and capacity for a collaborative project with an outside entity with expertise to explore our wage scale with broad goals for staff to update job descriptions, enhance our performance evaluation process, ensure we UNIFIED COMMUNITY SERVICES Wednesday, November 15, 2023 Page 2 have longevity in our wage scale, propose a scale that is comparable to the counties we serve, ensure wages are in market, and propose or recommend other additional duty pay or stay bonuses we should consider as we work to recruit/retain quality clinical and non-clinical staff. OFFICE SPACE We are creatively shifting and moving around current office space to make the best use of the space in both of our office locations. TECHNOLOGY Unified Community Services Information Systems Specialist is out on leave until mid-December. Holly Knapp is covering duties in absence. Agency continues to do ongoing work to make our Electronic Health Record work the best for Unified Community Services- regular meetings and a lot of staff time and effort are going into this project on many levels. We will need to maintain our NETSMART EHR into 2024 as we have additional data transfer work to be completed. We are working collaboratively with NETSMART and ECHO on the project. Focus currently is on ensuring that staff have equipment (hardware and software) that they need to do their jobs well and efficiently. Continued gratitude to Grant County Information Technology team for all of their guidance, support and hours of dedication to our department. b) Personnel report for October/November 2023 given by Ben Biddick. Advised the board of impactful recent initiative that contributed to client satisfaction as well as employee retention. The community closet initiative at Unified Community Services recently has helped clients with severe need access food and clothing in times of need at no cost to them as colder weather sets in. UCS employee April Nicholas also used gamification to create a competition between staff of who could get the most donations for the community closet resulting in more than 3000 items like winter hats, gloves, and coats that are now being provided for free to those in need. Also provided info to board about recent efforts to ensure Equal Opportunity compliance and English Limited English Proficiency compliance. Highlighted during the recorded, public meeting rights of citizens in Iowa and Grant County with regard to limited English language proficiency and also provided a written list of these rights in Spanish that was displayed for anyone watching the meeting or who may watch the video in the future in hopes they can comprehend their rights and potentially access UCS services in the future. Described Cultural Humility booklet created and disseminated to UCS staff which could be used as a tool to value differences and find common ground with others. The final topic of discussion was gratitude to our Armed Forces Veteran’s as Veteran’s Day was the week prior. Discussed Director Holly Knapp ensuring UCS participated in Operation Green Light which consisted of putting up green lights outside UCS facilities during Veteran’s Day week as a symbol of UCS’ support and gratitude toward Veterans and their families. Also made board aware that a new onboarding program created at UCS for Veterans, currently serving military personnel, current and former military spouses, and Veterans’ families members to help value, support, and empower them which led to Unified Community Services winning a Gold Award from the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development for the Vets (Veterans) Ready program. This award was for “employers who demonstrate exemplary support for the Veteran community” and “build a support system within their workplace, hire and retain more Veterans, and connect to Veterans in the community and their families.” c) Financial Report given by Jessica Munson. Jessica advised UCS was currently 83% through the 2023 budget cycle. She anticipated the UCS budget would be balanced at the conclusion of 2023 with a 28% unassigned fund balance. Johnson Block’s contract with UCS has expired and costs for a new contract for financial audit services are expected to increase significantly in 2024. d) Chairman’s Report – Joan Davis advised the schedule of every third meeting in Dodgeville would continue in 2024 with nothing further significant to report. e) Reports from Other Board Members: None. Amy Kite made a motion to receive the reports and place them on file. This was seconded by Dawn Kendrick and passed unanimously. UNIFIED COMMUNITY SERVICES Wednesday, November 15, 2023 Page 3 9. BUDGET AMENDMENT: Jessica Munson advised that due to increase of the health insurance premium of 14.5% instead of the previously budgeted 9%, Jessica worked to find a way to accommodate this change. Due to some of the tech purchases which streamlined systems, revenue increases, and benefit adjustments, the budget is now balanced. Steven Obershaw made a motion to approve the budget amendment. This was seconded by Justin O’Brien and passed unanimously. 10. UPDATES: Updates, discussion, and possible action re: request for indirect cost allocation to Unified Community Services by Grant County for their Personnel, Financial, and Information Technology services. Holly Knapp and Grant County Board Chairman Keeney provided updated. After discussion, Keeney and others will continue to work with Unified Community Services to bring clarity to the allocation. Jessica Munson advised key financial considerations for all to understand was the important balance of how much Unified pays for overhead, indirect costs totals, and how WIMCR and Medicaid reimbursements are affected. No action taken at this time. 10. ADJOURNMENT AND NEXT MEETING: Janelle Carroll moved to adjourn at 7:30 PM. Motion seconded by Carol Beals and passed unanimously. Next Unified Community Services Board meeting was scheduled for Wednesday, December 20, 2023 at 6:00 PM at the Grant County Administration Building, County Board Room 111 S Jefferson Street Lancaster, Wisconsin 53813. Ben Biddick, Recorder