Human Services Committee

hsbminutesfeb2012.pdf (29 KB)

MINUTES
SAUK COUNTY BOARD OF HUMAN SERVICES

Meeting: February 6, 2012, 5:00 p.m., County Board Gallery, Baraboo, WI

Members Present: Alexander, Sinklair, Dippel, Fordham, Stoeckmann, Fabisiak, Vertein, Lombard, Bowers

Members Excused: None

Members Absent: None

Others Present: Orth, Brattset, Box

Chair Alexander called the meeting to order and certified compliance with the Open Meeting Law.

Motion by Lombard, seconded by Dippel to adopt the agenda. Motion Carried.

Motion by Lombard, seconded by Vertein to approve minutes of the previous meeting. Discussion: Please correct final line of Item C.; change the word use to lose. Motion Carried.

Public Comment
None.

Communications:
Letter to the Editor: Brattset reported that Orth and Brattset had contact with the Baraboo News Republic Editor regarding the letter which was reported last month to the Board. This letter focused on how the news media covers juveniles and associated decisions in this process. Brattset reported that this call went very favorably and that the Editor acknowledged some challenges in this area and agreed to continue an ongoing dialogue with Human Services.

Business Items:

A. Review and Approval of Monthly Vouchers: Box distributed the monthly vouchers and noted that there was a decrease in Salary and Benefits due to no health and life insurance. Also, retirement contributions were down. Administration was down due to no travel this month because January was reported in February. Community Support had a slight increase in that several months were paid. Institutions were slightly up due to Winnebago, Mendota and health care check expenses this month. Motion by Dippel, seconded by Fabisiak to approve vouchers in the amount of $815,741.84. Discussion: Lombard asked for clarification of expenses being paid for mileage in previous month. Motion Carried.

B. Approval for Two Data/Fiscal Staff to Attend the NetSmart CMHC National User Group Conference April 23-25, 2012: Box noted that the CMHC NetSmart National User Group Conference will be held April 23-25, 2012. This is an annual conference and all of our CMHC work is done in-house. It is an essential feature of business at Sauk County Department of Human Services. Box suggested a billing and data staff person would attend to cover both of these areas. The conference is held in New Orleans, Louisiana this year. There are networking opportunities which can assist the Department in the development of CMHC projects such as electronic medical records. Cost will include registration, travel, and meals and is estimated to be total for two people $2,800.00. Box noted that this has been budgeted in this year’s budget. Motion by Vertein, seconded by Fabisiak to approve two Human Services staff to attend the CMHC conference on April 23-25, 2012 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Motion Carried.

C. Resolution Commending Julaine Allen: The Board discussed the Resolution as presented honoring Julaine Allen, recently deceased, Sauk County Department of Human Services Outpatient Psychotherapist. Motion by Dippel, seconded by Bowers to approve this Resolution as read. Motion Carried.


D. Draft 2011 Annual Report: Orth referred to the Annual Report (see attached). In summary, it was a good financial year and he is pleased with the Outcome Measures which indicate positive quality of services. Motion by Lombard, seconded by Sinklair to approve the 2011 Annual Report. Motion Carried.


Department Updates:

A. TMG Committee Update: Orth noted that the TMG Committee had met and discussed and voted to approve a merge of the Public Health/Human Services Boards. This will go to the full County Board in February 2012. This would be a combined board of nine members. If approved, this would go into effect sometime most likely in April, 2012. The final TMG Subcommittee should occur in the next week drafting a resolution as above noted.

B. TMG Study Recommendations: Orth referred to the TMG Subcommittee Recommendations (see attached). He indicated there had been two actions taken on these recommendations thus far. In one area, Box indicated there have been a number of actions taken in-house in regards to business items suggested by the TMG Report. These include: tax intercept, which has shown some success; and a decision not to get a contract with Blue Cross/Blue Shield as recommended due to having to accept these payments as a complete payment and not having a high volume of Blue Cross/Blue Shield accounts. Box further spoke about the Accounts Receivable Report having been adapted and future electronic medical records process will assist this. The second area Orth referenced was the Human Services Organizational Summary from TMG (see chart on page 15), which was reviewed. Orth noted that actions have been taken in a management workgroup which will not incur additional expense. The challenge will be to realign service delivery and interfaces between units increasing collaboration and quality of services for consumers. Orth noted that in this climate, this is an adaptation of the feedback from TMG that is more reasonable at this time. Fordham indicated that this is a good example of using the Management Report, but not necessarily changing exactly as recommended. In addition, given the agency’s realignments, Fordham requested an organizational chart which Orth indicated will be given to the Board next month.

C. Income Maintenance Transition: Orth noted that several errors were made by the State in the transition of Income Maintenance. This included contacting consumers with the wrong phone number as well as scanning documents into wrong cases. This was a challenging process in the first several weeks and Orth and Brattset described the process by which these cases were handled when consumers called the Human Services Reception. Those cases which were marked as urgent as a result of these challenges were hand delivered to the Economic Support Manager and rectified as soon as possible. Orth noted that this process has been improved and these challenges seem to be getting better, but it has been a difficult period of transition.

D. Safety Services Grant: Orth reported that the Safety Services Grant amount for the county consortium of Dodge, Sauk, Adams, Juneau, Green Lake, and Waushara counties is $542,420.00 per year of the grant. The grant is projected to for two years. LSS is in the process as a partner of this grant of hiring nine positions. Services should start to be delivered in March or April of 2012. Further updates will be forthcoming to the Board.

E. Functional Group: The next meeting of the Functional Group is on February 14, 2012 before the TMG meeting.

F. Human Services Redesign: Orth referenced the Human Services Redesign project (see attached). WCHSA is discussing the redesign options with county directors at this time. In addition, information is going to county boards. Major concepts were reviewed and examples include: locally and regionally controlled services with different concepts such as shared governance and service delivery authorities. Several examples were given and Minnesota is sighted as a state which has gone in part to this model.

G. LEAN Government Services: Orth indicated that Brattset had attended a brief training on the LEAN Quality Improvement Model, which is a model used by business and industry, particularly production industry based on Deming’s Quality Improvement Methods. These could be adapted, conceivably, for service delivery improvement in human services departments. Brattset will attend an additional training in the next week.




The next meeting of the Sauk County Human Services Board is scheduled for Monday, March 5, 2012 at 5:00 p.m.

Motion by Bowers, seconded by Fabisiak to adjourn. Motion Carried.




Andrea Lombard