MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
JANUARY 24, 2005
Chairperson Stutsman called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 10:00 a.m. Members present were: Pat Harney, Mike Lehman, Terrence Neuzil, Sally Stutsman, and Rod Sullivan.
DISCUSSION: JOB DESCRIPTION FOR GENERAL ASSISTANCE COORDINATOR; GENERAL ASSISTANCE CODE REQUIREMENTS; FUNCTIONS OF COUNTY DHS ADMINISTRATOR AND ROLE OF STATE DHS; RE-ORGANIZATION OF COUNTY HUMAN SERVICE FUNCTIONS
Stutsman said that the purpose of the meeting is to continue the discussion about reorganization of the County Human Services Department. Stutsman said that this is a big task for the County and she is very interested in keeping up with the changes that have been happening to the Human Services system. She continued that it is in the best interest of the County that they seriously discuss these changes. Budget Coordinator Jeff Horne said that after Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek went through the job description, the position has the same pay grade as the current position so the real difference would be the fact that former General Assistance (GA) Director Kay Hull was paid at the high end of the range and the new employee would be paid at the bottom. He said that there would be a few thousand in savings, but not a whole pay grade of savings over the old GA position. Shramek said that Hull was red circled. Interim General Assistance Director Susan Campney said that there were also differences because the position was supervisory.
R. Sullivan said that they had decided that there needs to be 1.5 people doing the GA work and the question is if one person will supervise the other. Stutsman said that they will be two similar positions with both being supervised by the Social Services Director. Stutsman said that the GA Director will no longer be a department head. Horne asked if they need to have someone designated as Director to follow the Code. Assistant County Attorney Andy Chappell said the County Attorney’s Office opinion is that someone needs to be designated as the director but they don’t have to title the position as GA Director. Chappell said that it should be more than symbolic and should be included in the job description. He recommended the Board pass a resolution after the person is hired to designate them as the Johnson County General Assistance Director. Department of Human Services Area Supervisor Cheryl Whitney asked if the General Assistance Director is going to be the GA Coordinator. Stutsman said that the Social Services Director would be designated as the GA Director in accordance with the Code. Whitney suggested having 1.5 FTE in General Assistance. Stutsman said that they will ultimately. Campney asked who will be the contact person for all of the County associations because currently GA meets with area hospitals and other organizations. Chappell said that the Code requires that a GA Director be appointed and indicates that person’s tasks, but other than that, the Code is fairly limited. Stutsman said that it will be a similar hierarchal structure to the County Engineer and Assistant County Engineer. The head of the department will be the Social Services Director.
Chappell suggested that it might be helpful to briefly say what each position would be equivalent to in current positions and duties. Stutsman said that the Social Services Director would include Whitney’s duties, some of Hull’s duties, Juvenile Justice Contract Employee Marlene Perrin’s duties, and eventually the Decat Coordinator responsibilities. Horne said that it would include Whitney’s County responsibilities like beds at Chatham Oaks, Johnson County Social Services, and the Department 45 budget. The State will continue doing the Local Administrative Expense (LAE) because it is designated by Code. Whitney said that her job description says prepare and administer the intergovernmental agreement (28E), prepare the administrative services portion of Department 45, and directly supervise Johnson County staff including the custodian and accountant. Whitney said that the duties were fairly specific. Stutsman asked which of the duties Whitney performs in her current position. Whitney said that she still supervises Human Services Accountant Kathy Lynch and Community Program Aide Brenda Petz. Social Work Supervisor Connie Sarchet supervises the three County social workers. Whitney added that is seems as though they are talking about renegotiating the 28E agreement and that she has always been involved in doing that and the budget. She explained that MH/DD has more of their own equipment now but there is still some that they share like the copy machine and the postage machine. When things like the voicemail system upgrade come about, Whitney is responsible for them. Whitney is involved in Space Needs for the building. If there is a new employee to add to the computer network, she takes care of that. Whitney has not been involved in AFSCME negotiations for awhile.
Lehman asked if there are any gaps that Whitney is not able to handle since the State reorganization of the Department of Human Services. He said that they are trying to figure out if there is a need for another supervisor. Whitney said that she used to spend a lot of time doing planning coordination before the reorganization in 2001. She said that they have not used the Decat funding how they used to. Stutsman said that they don’t have a Decat Coordinator anymore. Whitney was able to make recommendations on streamlining the systems and those had been helpful. Lehman said that one concern is that Whitney is not here in a physical sense to oversee workers, and that there might need to be an adjustment to make sure that someone is. Whitney said that she understands that, but she is worried about the impact on the 28E agreement and that things need to be coordinated properly between the State and the County. She said that Social Worker II An Fevold still does the Childcare Assistance, which is a State Function. Social Worker II Margo Magee-Swim does the recruitment and support for family foster homes, which is above and beyond what DHS would do. Whitney would have to see what kind of access they could get on the network, and they might need an additional server for the County staff. Lynch said that herself, Campney, and the other GA person could be put on the MH/DD server. They would probably be able to put the other County people on it too. Lynch said that if the 28E Agreement was still in effect, the County employees who are currently on the State server would still have access to it. She said that when they move to the new building the County server concern would be a moot point because there would be a different County server that they could be on.
Stutsman said that they need to make sure everyone knows who is doing what function currently. She said that the General Assistance Coordinator is Susan Campney, Kathy Lynch is the Accountant, there is no General Assistance Part Time worker currently, and the Community Program Aide is Brenda Petz, who also serves as the receptionist at the DHS building. Stutsman said that there are also three County social workers that provide State functions. Whitney said that Magee-Swim and Social Worker II David Moran do not do State functions. Stutsman said that Magee-Swim does the foster care recruitment. Whitney said that there is another person who does the actual licensing function for DHS.
Chappell said that Lynch’s position is not going to change much. Stutsman asked why Lynch is not doing MH/DD work anymore. She said that more of those responsibilities should go back to her. Lynch said that in May of 2003 Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities Director Elaine Sweet said that she didn’t need Lynch to do any work with it so Lynch picked up other duties. Whitney explained that the decision was Sweet’s. Stutsman said that she knows that, but now Sweet is asking for another support staff to do what Lynch had been doing. Whitney said that Lynch is responsible for the LAE, the Empowerment claims, and case management rates. Horne said that a lot of things are being done by Perrin, but the administration of programs is getting more complex.
Chappell asked if all of the positions are currently County funded. Stutsman said yes. Chappell said that although there are going to be changes needed with the 28E it is not as though they are changing State employees, just County employees that perform State functions. Stutsman said that she is not interested in doing away with the 28E. Chappell said that there wouldn’t be major changes to Lynch’s position. Chappell asked if Campney’s title is currently GA Coordinator. Campney said that she is currently Interim General Assistance Director. Chappell said that some of Campney’s duties would be reallocated. Lehman said that the General Assistance Coordinator would basically be Hull’s job minus supervisory and budget responsibilities. Chappell said that he thought that the Social Services Director was the position that was most closely associated with Hull’s. Stutsman said that it has expanded a lot from what Hull did. She said that the GA Coordinator would see clients and provide assistance according to set policies. Chappell asked who does that now. Stutsman said that Campney does. Chappell asked if she does that now because she is the Interim Director. Campney said that both of them saw clients, but Hull also did the budget and supervised. She said that they are suggesting that neither GA person would handle the budget or supervisory roles.
Chappell summarized that the main thing they are talking about is a Social Services Director, a General Assistance Coordinator, and a new General Assistance Assistant which will be taking on the jobs that Hull and Campney used to do in addition to some other duties. Shramek said that is the direction that they’ve been moving in. R. Sullivan said that including Hull there have been 7 employees, and the suggestion is to move to 7.5 or 8 employees, but the Social Services Director would have only a couple of the functions that Hull did. The job is more of what Whitney was doing. The Board agreed. Horne said that there is also an emphasis on community planning. Stutsman asked how much money the County gives in block grants. Horne said the County funds a little over a million. Stutsman said that there is no oversight on those dollars. Horne said that there is a contract. Johnson County Council of Governments Human Services Coordinator said that she gets reports, financial statement, minutes, does site visits, and shares concerns and questions with the Board. Horne said that they’ve discussed changing the block grants to be more in line with the Board’s strategic planning goals. Stutsman agreed that they started that process last year in the Board’s strategic planning. Severson said that the Board chose to get more involved with mandated services. R. Sullivan said that the Juvenile Justice Group works well and if the County could get that kind of effort in other areas it would be great. Stutsman said that they had it when it was Whitney’s responsibilities.
Campney said that it has been three weeks now with only one person in GA. Campney starts seeing clients at 8:00 a.m. and tries to answer multiple phone calls in between. She said that files are sitting on her desk and paperwork isn’t always sent over to the University properly. Campney doesn’t have time to complete interview notes or other required paperwork. She said that she is aware of cutting short client’s stories and required verification because she doesn’t want them to come back a second time to bring verification because she doesn’t have time to see them. Campney’s concern is that the County will eventually help more people more times, often inappropriately, because she doesn’t have time to get the truth. She said that people who need help will not come because they’re aware of the tension and the people who take advantage of it will be able to do it more often. Campney also pointed out that GA has functioned very well for 20 years. They haven’t asked for big budget increases or additional staff. She said that Linn County has five people including support staff. Campney said that the message is that as long as GA isn’t noisy and functions well they can be taken advantage of. She said that it seems that the whole reason GA is involved in the discussion is because the Board wants their salary dollars for the new position. Campney said that she sees value in some of the things being discussed but she wants the Board to think long and hard about what they might be doing to GA in the long run. Campney said that Shelter House was one thing mentioned earlier in the meeting. She said that the wisdom in GA has not been very well used. She said that GA has functioned in Johnson County with housing issues for years and to her knowledge GA was never asked for housing input. Campney suggested that County dollars could be used more wisely if the wisdom in GA was used in participating in housing functions. She said that GA has worked well and asked that decisions be made soon.
Harney said that he is trying to sort out the pluses and minuses. He said that it seems they are building a big dynasty that might not work. Stutsman said that they gain efficiencies by having people in place that have an overview of what is going on in the entire County. Harney said that they are creating new jobs but nobody is picking up the GA services. Stutsman replied that GA is only a small part of the Human Services function. Harney said that it has been two full time positions, which they won’t have anymore. R. Sullivan agreed with Campney but said that a Director is a good place to go, but they need to make a decision soon to give GA the resources that it needs. Neuzil said that they understand the roles of the different positions but funding is an issue. He said that at some point they are going to need to understand the costs associated with all of the positions. He said they are going to be looking for a Social Services Director that has GA experience, grant writing experience, community program assistance experience, and juvenile crime. Neuzil said that to find someone with those skills won’t be cheap. He asked if the funding for the position will come from the Department 45 budget, which would mean less money for block grants. Horne said that it would come from the Department 45 budget, but would be up to the Board whether or not they want to take it from the block grants. Horne said that he will figure out an estimate of all of the costs.
Whitney said that she is concerned about General Assistance also. R. Sullivan asked if they could move forward. Stutsman agreed and said that they could. Stutsman asked if they could hire a temp. Campney said that would not be a good idea. Shramek said that a temp could help with paperwork. Campney said that she needs someone who can interview and help get to know the clientele. R. Sullivan said that if they hire another GA employee they will be making about half of what Hull was making. He said that regardless of what they do with the Social Services Director position, it needs to be done. Horne said that they could hire a GA Assistant at .75 FTE and reevaluate it later.
The Board agreed to fund a part-time person to help Campney in General Assistance.
The Board reiterated their thoughts at length on the duties of the Social Services Director and agreed to keep on discussing and researching the issue.
Adjourned at 11:15 a.m.
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By Casie Kadlec, Recording Secretary