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HomeMy WebLinkAbout07 SOCIAL SERVICES BOARD MINUTES 07-07-2021 SOCIAL SERVICES BOARD MINUTES July 7th, 2021 The Grant County Department of Social Services Board meeting was held, with some board members appearing via zoom (z). The meeting was called to order by Chairperson John Beinborn (z) at 9:00 AM. Roll Call was taken with Dale Hood, Don Splinter, Lester Jantzen, Greg Fry, Robert Scallon, Dwight Nelson (z) present. Also present was Fred Naatz, Director, Bob Keeney County Board Chairman (z), Amanda Degenhardt, Finance Director (z) LeaAnne Smith, Office & Financial Coordinator (z), Shane Drinkwater, Director of IT. The meeting was found to be in compliance with the open meeting laws. Lester Jantzen made a motion to approve the agenda. Greg Fry seconded, the motion carried. Correction of April 7th minutes: Correction from April 7th meeting minutes, which were approved, John discussed with Bob Scallon and Bob was not in attendance, minutes will need to reflect that. Don Splinter made a motion to approve the correction for the April 7th, minutes. Dwight seconded the motion, the motion carried. Minutes of May 5th, 2021 meeting: Greg Fry made a motion to approve the May 5th, minutes. Bob Scallon seconded the motion, the motion carried. COMMUNITY SERVICES BUILDING MAINTENACE UPDATE: Fred said the tiles in the main lobby were replaced and they look good. Epic is supposed to send someone to come in and reseal the lobby floor. Bob Keeney stated where the tiles were cracked was an expansion joint between the two floors. John asked if this was going to be ongoing. Bob stated they did not actually fully adhere these tiles. They made them float and put them on with caulking so they could float. It should not be an issue. FINANCIAL REPORTS: Summary of Vouchers: The board reviewed the vouchers Accounts Payable Reports, printed 06.28.2021. Dwight asked if SWWDB had two people attending a conference. Fred explained Kelly Liddle and Sarah Digman are contracted through the SWWDB and these are for their wages for that period. Fred stated mileage is high due to workers turning in more than one month. LeaAnne talked with Amanda about workers turning in mileage monthly. LeaAnne sent out an email letting workers know they will need to turn in their mileage monthly for tracking and audit purposes. Going forward mileage will be for the same month. Administrative Report 2020: The out of home placements there was a large number of kids in high end placements. The Alternate Care contracted services was for alternative living services, a placement out of Sheboygan, we had a couple kids placed there as it was difficult to find placements for them. They worked with us and developed an emergency respite program and we were able to keep the kid in placement for quite a few months, which helped but were really expensive. We budgeted $16,000 and ended up spending $200,000. Greg asked what makes a child high needs. Fred stated the ones we have are called runners. They get stressful in situations and run. Hoping the kids learn coping skills. John asked if we still have kids in these facilities. Fred stated we have four kids, which are down from last year. Two of these should be home in the next month or two. One of the kids is in the secure detention program, which is costly, but he was court ordered to be in this facility through the adult court. John stated Wisconsin is trying to develop a new program, is there any hope? Fred stated he is hopeful; if they allow us to develop them the way we need, we can do some really good things. Fred spoke with Jeff Lockhart of Unified who applied for a grant for substance abuse and was going to have an in home team from Orion go into the home and work with families. The people from the grant asked if he knew the money could only be used for people with substance abuse. Greg Fry stated he was contacted by a lady who was interested in applying to be a foster home and contacted the Department and she said nobody called her back. Fred stated he followed up on this and there seemed to be some miscommunication. The lady was told someone would call her back that day or the next day. Fred checked with Clark and in most cases the response is 3 – 5 days to call them back. When we get a call it goes to intake and then the supervisor decides who to assign it to and it goes to the person the next day. Greg stated her expectations didn’t match. Fred said he did call the lady back and apologized to her if we told her someone would call her back that day or the next day. Bob Keeney stated going back to the Administrative Report for 2020 Fred eluted to being over budget. Bob asked with the revenue short falls and being over budget, Social Services was $295,561.78 short in 2020 how do we handle this. Fred stated the difference between revenues and expenses was a little over $200,000. There was a tax levy for other programs that did not get used as much and that could go towards this program. Fred stated this is why we have that carry over money. Bob K asked do we have the carry over money and did we reallocate it. Bob thinks DSS used it last year and never allocated anything back. John asked if Amanda would know whether or not it was allocated back. Amanda stated a motion was made to make social services whole last year after their short fall and does not believe the $200,000 was replenished. Fred asked if this has to go back to the county board. Bob stated yes it has to go back to the full county board. Amanda stated the county audit is not completed yet and no action will be taken until we know the final numbers. It was agreed this will be tabled until next meeting. Administrative Report 2021: Looking at alternate care we are at 57% expended already. One child is placed in a residential center and will be coming home this month and another will be coming home the start of school. Two out of four will be ending their placement. Looking at the CLTS MH and CLTS PD, both are really high, but this is the case management our workers bill for. This generates revenue for us to the CLTS program and then we get reimbursed for them. Under secure detention it shows there is $40,000 to use and we have not used any out of that. Greg made a motion to approve the Administrative Report. Dwight seconded, the motion carried. Training Costs: There is a Children Come First conference coming up in November that a group of workers are attending in person. Fred stated he is on the Steering Committee and it was discussed that 80% of the Foundation trainings will continue to be virtual. Dale made a motion to approve the training costs. Greg seconded the motion, the motion carried. CORRESPONDENCE: WHEAP Audit Report/Comments: Tracy, WHEAP Admin Review Monitor, from the Division of Energy sent an email stating she wanted to extend “Kudos to you and your staff for doing a great job at administering the WHEAP in Grant County.” ADMINISTRATION – GENERAL: FBI CJIS Security Regarding Misuse of CHRI Policy: The Department needed this policy for an audit being done by the DOJ. It is for if someone violated the requirements what would happen. This policy states if someone in the Department violates the requirements when handling the fingerprint information the Department would report and investigate and the person could face disciplinary action up to and including termination depending on the situation. Lester made a motion to approve the policy. Bob seconded the motion, the motion carried. Update on State Budget: Naatz stated there was an increase for families receiving Kinship Care. It was $254 per child per month and the budget increases it to $300. There is also an increase for foster parents. DCF and the governor asked for a $15 million increase in the children and family aid and Joint Finance removed it. Another topic was when families take in a child as a placement into their home if they are out of the home for a while they can become guardians for the child and be eligible for a program called Subsidized Guardianship, this is still in the budget. DSS 2022 Draft Budget: With the Family First Legislation we potentially won’t have as much expense in the residential placement as it will be much more limited, but at the same time more expensive. The focus needs to be providing more services in the home and how do we reflect that on the budget. A couple proposals Naatz has is to project out and continue using at the same level. For Example: RCC we probably will not use all the money, but some of the money would be for services. Another option would be to do our best guess as to how much we are going to spend on these treatment centers and group homes. Overall it is not going to change much. Fred asked Amanda her thoughts. Amanda stated with the knowledge you have right now you have to do the best you can. In a month you might be shifting numbers from one program to another in August. Social Services Department COVID-19 Update: Naatz explained with the vaccine rates and being at a medium risk level now the Department did bring back most of the staff, but the staff that share a room is on a rotating schedule. The Department is treating staff as they don’t have the vaccine since they can’t ask staff if they do or don’t. John asked Bob K when there would be any change in the Emergency Declaration. Bob stated it is a County Board decision. Director’s Report – As the Department develops services in response to Family First it created some questions in our side of things. For example: under the Targeted Safety Support Funds we can use these funds for safety concerns. If we ask a family member or neighbor to go in twice a day to see if they are drinking, using drugs. We could use some of the funding to reimburse them as part of a safety plan, will need to check with Ben Wood regarding liability issues. Orion did hire a therapist for Grant County and is looking for a second one. The Department is doing a resource fair and backpack drive August 5th at the Eckstein Building. LeaAnne will mail a flyer out to the DSS Board. CITIZEN COMMENT- None ADJOURMENT- At 10:16 AM, Dwight made a motion to adjourn until August 4th, 2021, which was seconded by Lester. The motion carried, the meeting was adjourned .