MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
JANUARY 11, 2005
Chairperson Stutsman called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 1:31 p.m. Members present were: Pat Harney, Mike Lehman, Terrence Neuzil, Sally Stutsman, and Rod Sullivan.
DISCUSSION: RE-ORGANIZATION OF COUNTY HUMAN SERVICE FUNCTIONS
Stutsman said that General Assistance Director Kay Hull has retired which has presented an opportunity to look at the functions of Human Services and possibly work on reorganization. Stutsman added that Human Services Area Supervisor Whitney Whitney’s position with the DHS reorganization is drastically different than when she was Director of Johnson County Human Services. Budget Coordinator Jeff Horne that a committee was formed to address the changes and came up with a list of recommendations. The list includes: better coordination of internal County services with agencies and other jurisdictions; administration of the Department 45 budget; grant writing, administration, and coordination; and community planning. He said that they propose a structure where the Human Services Director becomes the department head and the General Assistance director would be a manager, similar to the structure of the Public Health Department. He added that two people would remain in the office and the accountant and receptionist positions would remain under the new Director. Horne said that a portion of the Department 45 budget is required to be administrated by the State, who will continue to do so. The social work positions outlined in the 28E agreement would continue to work with the State. Horne added that to offset part of the costs of the new position some of the grants have administrative components to them and if the work were to be done in-house the County would be able to take advantage of local administrative reimbursement. He added that they are leaving the door open for Veteran Affairs to join if the Veteran Affairs Commission would decide that some day.
Stutsman said that she wants to decide if the Board is in agreement to continue with the current train of thought in the reorganization of Human Services. She added that they need to hire the General Assistance person as the current director is Interim General Assistance Director Susan Campney. Stutsman said that she sees the Human Services Director as managing Department 45, taking charge of the Human Services block grants, and acting as a liaison to the Board. She added that she would like this person to work closely with Decat, Empowerment, and Juvenile Justice. Horne said that the Board decided when the State reduced its budget to maintain the level of funding to Juvenile Crime Prevention and it is now mainly County funded and has been able to function as a model and leverage as a match. This also causes more administration to manage the increased grants. Lehman said that he is concerned about work load and work responsibility. He said that if they shift duties they need to be sure that employees are not overworked. Horne said that once Contract Employee Marlene Perrin leaves someone will still have to take care of the administrative portion of the job.
R. Sullivan asked about the administration for Empowerment. Stutsman said that Empowerment is a separate entity from the County. The County has representation on the Empowerment Board and many decisions made have implications on the County. Stutsman pointed out that the coordinator for Empowerment is a grant funded County employee. R. Sullivan said that he got the sense that Perrin would be comfortable with the County doing things in-house, but the same sense isn’t coming from Empowerment. Stutsman said that Empowerment has long discussed a need for a coordinator, but that there has never been the dollars for it. She suggested that the County partly fund an Empowerment Coordinator.
Neuzil asked if by creating the new positions they will be eliminating any old ones. Horne said that the proposed reorganization creates one new position and rearranges a couple of others. He explained said that the GA position would change to a manager and then there would also be a new position. Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek asked how vacations would be handled. Stutsman asked if there needs to be two people in GA or if the Human Services Director could be the back up. Campney said that she needs another person to help with the work load as she has many in office and community based things to take care of. For example, she said, she wanted to send out a memo discussing the recent personnel changes in the office but that it is already the 11th of the month and there is no opportunity to do it. Stutsman asked how things were handled in the past when she wasn’t spending all of her time on GA. Campney said that she spent 75% of her time working on GA and 25% was spent helping Human Services Accountant Kathy Lynch. She explained that some of the needs have changed and that even without the 1/4 time, GA still had 1.75 people and it can’t all be done by one person.
Neuzil asked Lynch to explain her current position. Lynch said that she is supposed to be eased out of MH/DD, although she is still handling their payroll functions. She said that she still has daycare, Empowerment, local administrative reimbursement, the Department 45 budget, and personnel matters for the County funded positions. She added that right now she doesn’t do anything with the State. Stutsman said that basically Lynch’s function is evolving into what they want. Horne said that Department of Human Services Area Supervisor Cheryl Whitney gave the okay to go ahead with the Juvenile Crime and Empowerment things. Lehman asked if GEMS would eliminate some of the payroll work. Lynch said that with GEMS they will input information themselves rather than drop it off at the Auditor's Office.
Stutsman said that Social Worker II’s David Moran, Margo Magee-Swim, and An Fevold do all State functions for Johnson County, and Whitney will continue to supervise them under the 28E agreement. She added that Community Program Aide Brenda Petz would also be supervised by Whitney. Neuzil said that if a Human Services Director is created that person should be in charge of all the employees underneath them. Stutsman said that it is tricky because there are State functions that are managed at the County level. Neuzil said that the County Human Services Director would still be in charge of the County employees but they would also coordinate closely with the State for what is necessary for the State functions. Lynch said that they would lose reimbursement for them. Neuzil said that their duties would stay the same, only their advisor would change. Stutsman said that the only way to receive the local administrative reimbursement (LAR) is if they are supervised and are part of the LAR 28E agreement. Lehman suggested they rewrite the 28E. Johnson County Council of Governments Human Services Coordinator Linda Severson suggested they develop a list of pros and cons of the 28E agreement. Horne said that it comes down to a trade off with the reimbursements. Neuzil said that if the State recognizes that they are still doing the same things and serving the same functions, that they just report to a County supervisor, then they should still give the reimbursement. Severson asked if at some point in time Whitney’s position was mostly State funded with some County dollars. Stutsman said that very little County dollars were paid to Whitney.
Neuzil said that they need to think about receptionists for the future. He said that with the new building coordinating three floors of offices will be rough. Horne said that will have to be negotiated within the 28E agreement. Stutsman said that they are planning for these changes with the new building in mind. Horne said that it is important to have a personnel structure that will fit the building. Lynch said that she thought they were talking about a central receptionist for each floor in the new building. Stutsman said that they need to discuss that position at a later date when the building is more solidified. Neuzil said that they need to understand why the new position is needed and what exactly the new position is going to do. R. Sullivan said that one of the reasons for creating the new position is that it is difficult to identify what exactly is going on in the departments. Severson said that one thing that would help is if everyone lists what responsibilities they envision the new position to have.
Stutsman asked that they lay out the functions of the new position. The Board discussed the expected functions and included Department 45 and block grants, as well as grant writing and administration of the duties. Stutsman asked if Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities Director Elaine Sweet had created positions to deal with the Clerk of Court responsibilities and finding placements for people with involuntary commitments. Shramek said that she had. Stutsman said that the situation has not changed in Johnson County, but that it could at any moment. R. Sullivan said that that is in MH/DD. Severson asked who oversees juvenile placements now. Stutsman said that Whitney and DHS Employee Connie Sarchet do. Stutsman said that there is a certain amount of child welfare dollars that come into the County and that it is up to Whitney to manage them. She said that they are distributed through a difficult system and that it would be important that the new position help make those decisions. Severson asked who is in charge of building management. Stutsman said that Whitney has also been in charge of that. Lynch said that law requires the County to provide the administrative budget for DHS and that a DHS staff person needs to be responsible for that part of the budget. Horne said that everything is organized by function code and that it isn’t difficult to separate it out.
Neuzil said that they need to know what Whitney and Sarchet’s responsibilities are for County government. He said that if they take some of those responsibilities out of the State’s role and put them into this created position it would be justification for the new position. Lehman said that services will still be given, but the supervision is what they need to look at to see what the cost of the reorganization is really going to be. Horne said that there might not be any change except for gaining some administrative dollars back from other departments. Stutsman said that there is no longer a Whitney-type position for the County and that they need to decide if that function is important enough to continue as a solely County function. Lehman said that there may be a void left and that they need to determine if it will be substantial. R. Sullivan said that perhaps the Board could think about what they want and go into more of an RFP situation instead of block grants, and the new position would be in charge of it. Stutsman said that they have been heading in that direction. Horne said that R. Sullivan is talking about taking it further. R. Sullivan said that it feels as though with Juvenile Justice they get a better bang for their buck than just money to an agency. Horne said that they have been able to leverage $200,000 due to the Board’s commitment. R. Sullivan said that it seems more specific. Horne said that they will also want this position to tie into the working group so that plans can be made to accommodate future growth with services that will be needed. R. Sullivan said that they generally go to department heads to get advice on what is needed and directions that should be taken, but with DHS there is no such position. Neuzil said that if they had direction from the Board it would be easier to steer funds and programs. Neuzil added that when all of the money is added up these departments get close to $1 million and it would be nice to have someone that is in charge of all of it.
Stutsman said that she would also like the new position to be in charge of building management for the North Governor location. Lynch said that building management isn’t really one person’s job, all the employees are involved. Stutsman said that another issue regarding building or facilities management is who decides who gets which office space. R. Sullivan said that the proposal was to keep VA the same, but that there did seem to be a need to have General Assistance personnel be trained as backups in case something were to happen to Veteran Affairs Administrator Leo Baier. He said that this didn’t seem like a very good idea to rely on a group of temporary fill-ins that already have their own jobs to worry about. Lehman said that there are State Code requirements that need to be followed. R. Sullivan said that the Commission would be able to step in and replace Baier, but that he isn’t sure how realistic it would be in terms of service. Baier said that the Commission would be able to step in and Campney would be able to help a lot too. Horne said that it would be easier to fill in once the departments are co-located. Campney said that another problem is if Baier were to go on vacation or to ISAC. Baier said that VA and GA work together on things and that there is no reason for them not to in the future.
Stutsman asked if the Board is in agreement about the direction they are heading. Harney said that it seems like they are laying the groundwork for two new positions. Stutsman said that Human Services is a big enough role for the County and that they need to have their own department head. Harney said that eventually it might be a good idea to have a full time grant writer for the entire County because there are a lot of funds out there that are available and no one is looking at them. Lehman said that perhaps a couple of part time people who specialize in different types of grants would work. Horne said that Public Health is the major grant writer in the County and they don’t have time to attend to some applications. Stutsman said that if this is the direction everyone wants to go then HR needs to start drafting job descriptions. R. Sullivan asked if with two General Assistance positions, they would be equal or would one be a director while the other is an employee. Horne said that one would be General Assistance Manager and the other would be Campney’s prior position. Stutsman asked Shramek to discuss the job description for General Assistance. Shramek said that they have looked at the General Assistance director job here as well as the one in Linn County.
Stutsman asked what the next step should be. Horne said that they need to move as fast as possible to get the new General Assistance structure in place. Severson said that this particular job description lacks any mention of oversight and so they need to clarify if the two positions are going to be equal or not. Stutsman said that she sees them as equal without a supervisory function and that they would report to the new Director as equals. Shramek said that there are some concerns regarding that because it is unclear where the new position will be housed, and that it would be hard for the General Assistance people to be supervised by someone who is not in-house. Horne asked if they would have to have the General Assistance Director to sign State papers. Neuzil said that that is a Code question, that they need to find out who, in the eyes of the Code, would be the General Assistance Director. The Board scheduled another work session for January 13, 2005 at 3:30 p.m.. Stutsman said that they need to get Code clarification on the General Assistance assistant, they will review the job description for the General Assistance and if Whitney is available they will discuss other questions regarding DHS’ role. Horne said that he would like to alert Whitney to what things the Board is thinking about so that she will be able to be prepared, and if she can’t make it, can send a report summarizing some of the issues. Stutsman said that they also need to know if a Johnson County employee can supervise someone whose primary duties are State functions.
Adjourned at 2:51 p.m.
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By Casie Kadlec, Recording Secretary