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HomeMy WebLinkAbout05 SOCIAL SERVICES BOARD MINUTES 05-04-2022SOCIAL SERVICES BOARD MINUTES May 4th, 2022 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 County Board Chairman Bob Kenney at 9:00 AM. Roll Call was taken with Don Splinter, Robert Scallon, Adam Day and Diane Nelson, John Beinborn present. Also present Fred Naatz, Director, Bob Keeney County Board Chairman, Garry Pluemer, Maintenance Supervisor, Amanda Degenhardt, Finance Director (z), LeaAnne Smith, Office & Financial Coordinator (z), Shane Drinkwater, Director of IT. Not present was Brian Lucey and Brandon Snyder. The meeting was found to be in compliance with the open meeting laws. Jon Beinborn made a motion to approve the agenda without change. Don Splinter seconded, the motion carried. Election of the Board Chair: Bob Keeney explained John Beinborn has been the Chair for a four year term and according to the Counties rules he is not eligible this year to be Chair. Nominations are now open for the Chair of the Social Services Board. Robert Scallon made a motion for Don Splinter for Chair. Adam Day seconded the motion, the motion carried. Bob Kenney asked Don if he wanted to take over the meeting, Don stated to Bob Keeney for him to complete the nominations. Nominations open for Vice Chair for the Social Services Board. Robert Scallon nominated Adam Day, Adam Day withdrew. Adam Day nominated Diane Nelson. Adam Day made a motion for Diane Nelson to be Vice Chair; John Beinborn seconded the motion, the motion carried. Nominations open for Secretary of the Social Services Board. Adam Day made a motion for John Beinborn to be Secretary. Don Splinter made a motion for John Beinborn to be Secretary. Adam Day seconded the motion carried. Minutes of April 6th, 2022 meeting: John Beinborn made a motion to approve the April 6th, minutes. Donald Splinter seconded the motion, the motion carried. Board Orientation to DSS Programs and Board Responsibilities: Fred explained when you describe Social Services it is to provide services for safety, whether it is child protective services, adult at risk of abuse or neglect, income maintenance program. Fred explained our Economic Support Unit is part of the Southern Consortium, which consists of seven counties and all work is done through a call center now. Diane asked what counties the Southern Consortium call center consists of. Fred explained it is Grant, Iowa, Jefferson, Rock, Green and Crawford. Fred explained Rock County is the lead county of the Southern Consortium Call Center. The WHEAP program, which is run by the Support Unit staff, helps people with their heat and electric bills. This program starts October 1st and runs through May 15th. Childcare eligibility program is also run by the Income Maintenance program. Due to the pandemic the Income Maintenance program have made a lot of changes where a lot of the criteria were put on hold. Fred explained come summer and fall there will be quite a load of work for the Income Maintenance program. Social Services are also responsible for the Child Protective Services program. If someone has to report abuse or neglect of a child we have two social workers on intake each day available to take these calls and write up a referral. Then there is a screening decision made at the end of the day with the intake worker and social work supervisors whether it meets the criteria and we want to follow up and do an assessment. We have three initial assessment workers who would go out and do the assessment. If there are safety concern we try to do things formally, but sometimes we need to do a court order called CHIPS, which is through the court system. The Juvenile Justice Program, which is now called the Youth Justice Program, this is when kids commit crimes this will go through the Youth Justice system. We have two Juvenile Court Intake workers where all the referrals from Law Enforcement go through and they make sure they meet the criteria. We do voluntary cases for child welfare. Alternate Care, when safety cannot be ensured in the family and a child has to be removed from the home. The primary focus is to keep families together. If we cannot we look at Kinship Care, which is extended family or Foster Care, which we have two staff who license foster homes. There is subsidized guardianship, treatment foster home and residential Care facilities and corrections. We have the Elder Abuse program, a small amount of the Long term Care program, Alzheimer’s program we just switched over to the ADRC the beginning of the year. We offer a small supportive home care program. We are in the process right now switching the CLTS program back to Unified Community Services this program is children who have disabilities and mental health issues. Fred stated as long as he has been here, which will be 29 years in August, social services was always a family systems model. We have Trauma Informed Care training; two of our staff do a lot of training in this and just finished up putting on trainings at the Southwest Technical College. The social workers we use a model called Family Functional Case Management, this is an evidence base model. Fred explained several years ago the Department came up with Values and Visions for the Department. Fred explained there are quite a bit of responsibilities for the DSS board, the major one is to consult with the director regarding the budget, the annual report and appointment of the personnel. The DSS board has a role of recommending priorities, identifying any unmet needs and acting as a policy board. The DSS board appoints the Director and oversees the Director of Social Services. The risk social services have is the out of home placements. This is something we have no control over and don’t know what is going to happen throughout the year. For example a week ago eight children were removed from their homes and placed in foster care or kinship care. A lot of work done and budgeting is based on the time studies social workers do. Fred will email the power point presentation out to the board members. Board members would like a hard copy too. FINANCIAL REPORTS: Summary of Vouchers: Don had asked about Rawhide, Fred explained this is a new placement we have a kid at. Bob Scallon asked about the River Ridge school district expense, Fred explained this was for activities where kids came in to do, like cookie decorating. John Beinborn made a motion to approve the Summary of Vouchers. Diane Nelson seconded the motion, the motion carried. Administrative Report 2022: Fred stated we are 25% through the year. Looking at page 1- 5 these are all the revenues received. The largest one we receive is from State Aid DCF. The other one fairly large is the Income Maintenance revenue. Expenses for AMSO is a little high, but this is tied into making large payments to the liability insurance, property insurance and workman’s comp insurance. The alternate care is the one with the most variability, which we are low right now. Bob Keeney had a question on the AMSO Long Term and Social work mileage expenses there is no budget amount for these, but a large amount of expenses. The AMSO total we are over budget by 48%, but part of that is there are hundreds of thousand dollars’ worth of expenses not budgeted for, which throws the percentage of. Bob Keeney asked why this was not budgeted for. Fred’s understanding is the county indirect cost is developed by a company who determines the indirect costs for the different departments. This is balanced out with some other money and becomes a wash. Bob Keeney will talk with Amanda about this. Fred will follow up with LeaAnne on the social work travel and mileage. Adam Day made a motion to approve the Administrative Report. John Beinborn seconded, the motion carried. Training Costs: Fred explained the Generations Unmasked/Communications training was put on by the county. There is a statewide training organization called Wisconsin Child Welfare Professional Development System, which provides most of the training for our social workers. These trainings received through them are online trainings and cost $25 and $50 per training. Don asked if we could do one motion for the summary of vouchers, administrative report and training costs. The next meeting this will be done. Adam Day made a motion to approve the Training Costs. Bob Scallon seconded, the motion carried. CORRESPONDENCE: None ADMINISTRATION – GENERAL: CLTS and Adult Protective Services Memorandum of Understanding with Unified Community Services update: Fred stated he signed an MOU with Unified who will take over all the CLTS cases and Unified will handle the APS cases. Workload wise it will be pretty comparable. Update on Family Viewing Room remodel: Fred explained the wall between the family room and office next to it will be expanded by removing the wall. This will expand the room where families have supervised visits. The next step is to take to the Administrative Committee for approval. Update on Job Fair responses: Social Services participated in the County Job Fair held at the Community Services Building. Overall 21 people had come in to apply for county jobs. Most were for the Highway Department. Fred was hoping to get more applicants for the Social Work positions. Fred is not sure if this is effective for the Social Work positions. Diane asked where Social Services advertise for positions. Fred stated we use Indeed, which is online, the Grant County Papers and Shopping News. We want to get back to having more interns where we can evaluate how good of a fit they are. Temporary assistance with Health Department Hospice Program: Fred stated a while ago Jeff Kindrai asked Fred if there was a social worker who has their masters who would be able to fill in for the Hospice Program position. Fred stated the one social worker who has a master’s is too busy right now. Fred who has his master’s has offered to the board for him to help out with this as he could do an hour or two. Diane asked if this was one to two hours a week or month. Fred stated this would be a month. 2021 Annual Report: Fred explained earlier in the year Tonya had sent out an email to the County Director’s they did not need to do an annual report. Fred explained according to the statue DSS has to do an annual report. The annual report will be done the end of June. Director’s Report – Fred explained the safety issues with the building with the jailors being released and wondering around the parking lot. Fred gave some examples of incidents that had happened. Fred is working with Shane on putting up a monitor up by the back door so staff can see outside before they leave the building. ADRC and Orchard manor has similar concerns. The Sheriff’s Department told staff they could call dispatch before leaving the building as well. Nate is going to contact other counties who have the same issues. Diane stated at the Jefferson county jail they did hand out resources when the jailors get released, but found most throw in the garbage on the way out. Bob Keeney stated his concern is the cost and putting up a monitor for staff would be the public seeing. Fred explained the monitor would be only by the back door on the south end of the building where only employees have access to. The DCF released a caseload study they contracted with an agency to do. Clark a social work supervisor reviewed the material. There was a report from it and they had a step by step instructions helping counties figure out what the recommended caseload for your county. Clark went through this and in order for the agency to meet the recommended levels we would have to increase the social work supervisors by five and 16 social workers to 29. Fred stated these numbers are too high. Adam Day made a motion to approve the Training Costs. Bob Scallon seconded, the motion carried. CITIZEN COMMENT- None ADJOURMENT- At 10:26 AM, Robert Scallon made a motion to adjourn until June 1st, 2022, which was seconded by John Beinborn. The motion carried, the meeting was adjourned.