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BURLEIGH COUNTY SOCIAL SERVICE BOARD
January 29, 2015
The Burleigh County Social Service Board convened at 3:30 p.m. on January 29, 2015, in Tom Baker Room at the City/County Building. Present: Betty Day, Gladys Cairns, Kathy Mayer, Doug Schonert, Jerry Woodcox, and Paul Ronningen. Also present: Kim Osadchuk, Sandy Smith and Linda Brew. Absent: Erica Cermak
December 18, 2014 and January 6, 2015 Minutes: A copy of the Board meeting minutes from December 18, 2014 and January 6, 2015 was previously emailed to the Board. Chair Mayer asked if there were any additions or corrections to the minutes.
Motion by Betty Day, second by Gladys Cairns, and unanimously carried to approve the minutes of the December 18, 2014 and January 6, 2015 meeting as emailed.
FINANCIAL REPORT OF SOCIAL WELFARE FUND AS OF December 31, 2014:
Balance on hand beginning of month $ 2,315,118.24
Receipts during month 1,454,489.69
Expenditures during month 517,131.68
Balance on hand end of month $ 3,252,476.25
OLD BUSINESS: none
NEW BUSINESS: Director’s Report - January, 2015 Report
Staff Update:
· Traci Gangness, Social Worker III, has resigned from her position and her last day of employment was January 23, 2015. Traci accepted a position with the school district.
· Vance Wingerter has accepted a position as an Eligibility Worker I and will begin employment on February 9, 2015.
· Michelle Rohloff has accepted a position as a Social Worker III and will begin her employment on February 9, 2015. Michelle was previously employed at Burleigh County Social Services.
· Jenna Lahr has accepted a position as a Social Worker III and will begin her employment on February 23, 2015. Jenna had previously interned at Burleigh County and also provided temporary work for Burleigh County Social Services.
· Sandy Smith, Administrative Manager, has given her notice for retirement. Sandy will be retiring from Burleigh County Social Services on May 22, 2015. Sandy started with Burleigh County in September 1976. Sandy has been with Burleigh County for 38 years and will be greatly missed. The board thanked Sandy for all her years of service.
Medicaid Expansion/Affordable Care Act Update:
We continue to have a rise in numbers for individuals applying for Medicaid Expansion but we are receiving old applications from July, August, and September that have come through the Federal Marketplace. In the month of January, we have received approximately 60 old applications from this summer. We have not seen any new applications associated with open enrollment for the Federal Marketplace. Open enrollment lasts until February 15, 2015. We anticipate we will receive a fairly large number of newly eligible Medicaid Expansion individuals when we start receiving the applications from open enrollment.
We have also discovered the counties are getting new program applications from TurboTax. TurboTax has a website, www.benefitassist.intuit.com that will help assist you to apply for benefits. A few of the benefits they have for individuals to access applications are Medicaid, SNAP, and LIHEAP. TurboTax is then sending the county the signed application for the program the individual is applying for. This is all very new to the counties and we do not know what kind of numbers we can expect to receive from this, however in the last couple of days we have received 24 of these applications. Most of the applications are incomplete. We have been informed that we will need to take action on all these applications. This means we will need to contact these individuals to obtain the needed information, schedule an interview and approve or deny the application.
Employee of the Month:
Our Employee of the month for February is Rachel Barnes. Rachel is an Office Assistant III and her primary job function is working the front desk and answering all incoming calls to the social service agency. Rachel has been employed by Burleigh County since February 2014 and has been such an asset to our county as she understands our client needs. She greets everyone with optimism and attentiveness.
We had some great nominees that deserve recognition. Allie Stein, Eligibility Worker II or Lead Worker and Barb Stegmiller, Social Worker III were both nominated for February.
We had our January Employee of the month and it is Nancy Davis, Eligibility Worker I. Nancy has been employed by Burleigh County for a year and a half. Nancy has become our foster care eligibility expert as well as ACA. Nancy previously resided in California and had many years of experience supervising the foster care eligibility unit in California.
Kim gave an update on the legislative bills including an attachment of listed bills.
CPS Report, Chris Kasper and Rhonda Block: This month we would like to update everyone on the “Stay in School Projects” that we as Child Protection Service workers participate in. These projects help us as CPS workers team with schools to address educational neglect. Before the implementation of these projects we would often get many educational neglect reports and worked alone on this issue. Several years ago we began implementing this project at one of the middle schools to help us all work as a team; this included Child Protection, the schools, Police Youth Bureau, and juvenile court. This was modeled after a similar project that was running in Grand Forks. This proved to be quite successful in working as a team and preventing a number of reports. The team is brought together as well as the parents. During this meeting, parents are aware of all the options and consequences in front of them, sometimes the student does as well. These could include a potential truancy charge for the student, a child protection report filing, or a compulsory school attendance charge generated by school administration (this affects children 7-16 years of age). If compulsory charges are brought it could result in a first citation as an infraction and fine. Repeated citations could bring jail time. This brings everyone to the same page. A few select schools that have more attendance issues than others have implemented this project.
Rhonda Block talked about the highlights of the Stay in School Project that she participates in at the United Tribes.
REVIEW OF BILLS: Bills numbered 68865 through 68960 for December were reviewed by Jerry Woodcox.
Motion by Jerry Woodcox and second by Gladys Cairns and unanimously carried to approve the November bills as presented.
MATERIALS DISTRIBUTED TO THE BOARD: Agenda, December 18, 2014 and January 3, 2015 Board meeting minutes, January, 2015 Director Report, Social Welfare Fund - December, 2014 spreadsheets and graphs, and Supervisors report December 22, 2014 and January 5, 2015.
NEXT BOARD MEETING: Next regular meeting is Thursday, February 26, 2015 at 3:30 p.m. in the Tom Baker Room at the City/County Building.
Chair Mayer called for the meeting to be adjourned.
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Kathy Mayer, Chair Betty Day, Secretary