--------- all right good morning everybody it's 8:30 we'll call this morning's meeting commissioners to order for tuesday april 8th our first item is the approval of a the agenda and we do have two additions one is a request approval from
of the caslay inter agency council and homeless proclamation and the other one we have um we do have kathy on for one um open position and she's asking for a
second one today so there's i'll make a motion with the additions of the two on the agenda second motion by commissioner bear second by commissioner aber any further discussion any further discussion seeing
none all in favor signify by saying i i oppose the same sign motion carried the agenda is approved we'll move on to citizens to be heard do we have any citizens to be heard on items not on the agenda mr chair i have been working with
the citizen who had said that he was going to be here this morning but i do not see him in the audience at this time all right and i do believe we all got that communication um of what he wanted to speak we'll see
how if he shows up if we have time we can maybe allow him at another part of the meeting all right so we'll move on then to the approval of the bills and vouchers mr chair uh commissioners just a a note
that uh in a past meeting you approved the full or the second half payment uh to the fm chamber and the greater fargo head economic development for innovate 28 uh when you made the request or when you made the request that we that they
pay for half of it earlier this year uh we asked them for resubmitting uh the an invoice for half of the amount they did not do so and so in your packet today there's a $185,000 uh total dollar amount uh in there uh for for your consideration
all right move to approve the pay the bills okay we have a motion second okay a motion by commissioner krabanov second by commissioner abinger any further discussion on the bills and
vouchers any further discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying i i oppose the same sign motion carried all right next we'll move on to our approval of minutes from march 25th i'll make a motion to approve the
minutes for march 25th 2025 second okay we have a motion by commissioner bear second by commissioner krabanhoff any further discussion any further discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying i i oppose the same sign motion carried all
right our next item is request approval to fill open rn position morning kathy we'll take both of your two items while you're here okay good morning mr chair and commissioners
i am requesting i had one uh agenda item for an open position i received a second verbal um resignation yesterday so it's two positions that are in our adult health program um and case management services so two full-time positions um
the case loads are high so we're hoping to fill those um fairly quickly although we're not getting a lot of rn um applicants so we're always challenged with that um we can hire either a 2-year or a
4-year rn in this area program area so um there would be savings you know if a 2-year rn is on a different grade um the one person that's leaving is um at the end of the scale so we would be hiring um the early steps so there would be
some savings um in that regard um but we are working with the health plans and dhs so the funding flows through those for the nurses providing these services to um elderly and others in the community
questions i have one question yes commissioner bear how many rns do you have that do this work um it's a guess i i have a lot of rns i think um a dozen i would say and i'll be
presenting our department update in a couple weeks so i'll have all the numbers of staff that we have do you anticipate any savings uh to to the county's budget on this yes so um at the top of that scale um the wage is the
4769 so the one individual is at the top of the scale the second one is kind of in the lower half um but we would hire at step one or if need be requesting to have step two or three depending on
their experience so there would be you know definitely a savings um with those positions both of them yeah um just follow up you said twoyear or fouryear is there a priority to you well the priority is fouryear obviously
um but in this in many program areas we can't hire two-year rns but in this program area we can um but the priority is a four-year that would be our um that's what what we would like to recommend but we do have some two-year
rns as well thank you they're one grade difference so the rns are on one grade the twoear rns are on a on a um grade just below that okay i'm assuming these positions would not be subject to backfill
um i'm am not aware of anyone that is interested in moving to this program area so yes no they would not with that i'll make a motion to advertise and hire uh two full-time registered nurses
second we have a motion by commissioner kavanagh hearing any further discussion any further discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying i i oppose the same sign motion carried all right thank you
we're ready to go next we have a approval of propos proposal for paving testing just a rory have a second piece i don't know my he's here the addition you had mentioned doing the addition
oh okay well let's let's do justin and we'll do the good morning so the item that i have is three proposals from brun intertech for pavement testing on casa 3 casa 10 and then also a mix design for a cir and fdr project on casa 21 so these
are three projects that are on our five-year plan just something i budget for every year just to ensure we're testing a couple years out just to make sure the fixes that we have on the five-year plan are the correct ones and that way if something does come back a little bit different we can adjust well
before the project's set to be designed and bid any questions i guess i have one question yes so this company would go out and test the roads that we have now yep perman if they move up or down on the 5-year plan uh not
necessarily up or down just that we're so bunch of it's borings and then the one on 21 is actually doing mixed designs so it's not unless something came back really really bad it wouldn't move down on the 5-year plan just to make sure that what i have as a fix is
the correct one okay all right and it also helps us to when we're putting plans through state aid it'll tell us exactly how many inches of batuminous we have to add to make sure that it's a 10 ton road all right so the the request is to
move approval for three proposals for brun intertech to provide pavement testing and mixed design services mr i'll offer a motion to approve all right we have a motion by commissioner mojo second by commissioner bear any further discussion
any further discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying i i oppose the same sign motion carried all right well let's take this um other yeah thanks justin let's take this next uh agenda addition here while we have
rory here good morning rory good morning commissioner campbell commissioners uh i'm here on behalf of the caslay inter agency council on homelessness um it is a group that is formed to help facilitate a a regionwide
cross-sectional um addressing of the home the complex homelessness issues that we've all heard about um to try to uh find best practices to identify solutions to uh
prevent and end homelessness and so this friday at the united way at 9:00 a.m there's a joint proclamation in each of the five cities in the metro area fargo morehead west fargo horus and dworth
um signed proclamations this agency is asking that klay county consider joining that as well and attending that um event on friday and so before you you have uh you have this this joint proclamation
okay i'm i'm not certain we're going to have i this was fairly new so i'm not certain about the availability for somebody to be there on on friday in ter i can be there okay all right you'll get me the information all right all right thank you all right so we
have here and we'll go around and i was going to maybe just suggest that rory just read it all but we'll we'll help out all right whereas homelessness is a critical issue affecting individuals and families across our region with
far-reaching impacts on health safety and economic stability and whereas the cities of fargo morehead west fargo dworth and horus and the county of clay recognize the v fundamental need of coordinated and comprehensive approaches to address the homelessness in our
community and whereas local service providers community organizers and government agencies have long been dedicated to addressing the homeless addressing homelessness yet there remains a need for enhanced collaboration and strategic alignment to
ensure the most effective and lasting solutions and whereas stable and affordable housing is essential for the well-being of our residents and the overall strength of our communities requiring leadership policy innovation and resource alignment to prevent and
end homelessness and whereas ending homelessness means making it rare brief and one time by preventing possible and ensuring that when homelessness does occur it is quick quickly resolved with permanent housing
solutions and whereas whereas the mayors of fargo morehead west fargo dworth and horus and the klay county board of commissioners are committed to fostering regional cooperation and ensuring that homelessness is addressed with urgency
compassion and evidence-based strategies and whereas the establishment of the cas clay inter agency council on homelessness led by the united way of cas clay and the fm coalition to end homelessness will bring together local
government governments service providers advocates and those who lived experience to drive solutions align resources and implement strategies that prevent our region and whereas this council will serve as a collaborative
form for policy development datainformed decision making and the advancement of best practices to reduce the homelessness and support pathways to stable housing now therefore we the cities of fargo morehead west
fargo dworth and horus and the county of clay do hereby proclaim our commitment to addressing homelessness as a region regional priority and formally announce the formation of the caslay inter agency camp encouraging all residents
organizations and leaders to join in this vital effort to ensure that everyone in our community has a safe and stable place to call all right there you have it oh well that's that's that's just the you don't need to read that last part i
uh strongly support this and i would make a motion that uh we uh join in this uh joint mayoral population uh proclamation second all right we have a motion and a second on the pro proclamation any
further disc any further discussion seeing none all in favor i oppose the same sign motion carried all right thank you right thank you i just want to say to chair and commissioners thanks for hearing this on
on short notice i know that homelessness is an important issue for all you and so as this came forward a little later than than uh the agenda after the agenda came out i appreciate you hearing that very good thank you all right next we have our annual
update with social services and we have our home and community based services and licensing and disability services divisions with us today quinn holly and jessica good morning morning mr chair
commissioners as you said uh i am here with holly and jessica today to give you our annual departmental update um i will be very brief again similar to last week uh we're going to start with the licensing and disability services division which is jessica mickelson's
division um again just to kind of that we'll be talking about uh regarding social services today you can see it's the uh blue and green column there we're going to be starting with jessica's so with that i'll kick to you thank you quinn good morning mr chair and commissioners as quinn said my name is
jessica mickelson i'm the supervisor for the licensing disability services division over at social services uh so this morning i will start with our licensing updates for 2024 uh so first off i'm going to speak to our adult family foster care
licensing availability so for family adult foster care we have one full-time licenser fran davenport um so currently we have 58 family adult foster care licensed homes in klay county with a
total capacity of 108 beds um of those 108 beds we currently have 17 openings and we are in process of licensing two new family adult foster care homes um nine afc licenses were closed in 2024 uh
six were voluntarily closed two were revoked and one moved out of county uh and then we had five new afc homes open in 2024 and each of those homes was for a specific service recipient uh so next i will speak to our
corporate foster care bed availability um so for our corporate foster care homes we have three licensers supporting that program area so fran davenport again and then julie clear and karen helm carry a small um corporate foster
care um case load um so in klay county we have a total of 121 um adult and child corporate foster care homes uh with a total bed capacity of 325 um of those
325 311 are for adults so we have a very small capacity for child corporate foster care beds in klay county social or in klay county um and then just kind of moving on um so here's some changes
that we have uh recently been kind of undergoing and this pertains specifically to family adult foster care um so under the direction of dhs in 2023 we started implementing some changes with how new beds were licensed in klay
county um so used to as soon as we'd receive an application or an inquiry we would move forward with the licensing process however what we realized uh pretty quickly was that kind of created uh a
bloating of the number of afc beds that we had in klay county which really kind of led to um us not being able to necessarily kind of control the flow of who's coming into klay county um as you can see here um we're the 16th largest
county in the state but we have the fourth most family adult foster care homes um so in 2023 and we really honed this in last year in 2024 uh we started focusing more on the capacity needs of klay county residents and the
individuals we serve through the program areas that holly's unit kirsten's unit um our public health programs um specifically just focusing on klay county residents um so this allows our licenser to
better providers and match service recipient needs with provider capabilities um it also assisted us with reducing compliance issues that led to the many revocations that we've rece or that we've seen in um family adult
foster care over the past few years um and as you can see um we currently have 124 names on the inquiry weight list so instead of putting people like on a wait list we're just not accepting applications at this time unless if they
have a specific service recipient identified as you can see from the number of family adult foster care beds that we currently have in klay county we still have bed availability so it's not like we're not meeting um we're just not inflating this pool of
providers so it allows us to better vet and ensure that our providers are better equipped um have the necessary education and background and training to provide the service and really do a much better job than than what we've seen in previous years so um and if we were to
just open this up like i said we'd have 124 additional homes and there's not necessarily that need so they'd be sitting there empty you know and kind of maybe frustrated with the process so uh that's a little opposite for the
rest of oh mr chair oh yes commissioner mojo thank you so you talked about the bed capacity being 325 and that it's only um a limited limited for children or limited for adults the 311 for children availability or adult
availability so that 325 the 311 are licensed for adults and 14ate beds in klay county are licensed for children okay we've seen a significant decline a lot of our corporate providers have been closing their children's beds
over the past few years so in regards to the 124 that are on the wait list are you able to screen those are just for adults that's family adults okay so if you were to come forward or someone were to come forward with a child bed availability that's not necessarily something that would be on a wait list
that would be correct absolutely not okay thank you so we'll talk about children's foster care licensing so it kind of it's a little confusing because corporate can serve adult and children and then when we look at family foster care there's family adult and then
family child and so our family child foster care licensing primarily works with our child protection social workers and those are the placements that they focus on taking so and i guess to my question maybe to make it make sense for someone who this isn't my wheelhouse as
much i try but um in regards to what our our our messaging across the state is i didn't want it to seem like we had a wait list of child availability and i understand it's a whole different component uh sure that we are addressing that as
additional capacity comes forward we're not holding on to it thank you yes definitely uh so to speak to the child foster care licensing world uh we have two full-time staff that work in that program area gail burnside uh works with our
non-relative um providers alex eshog works with our relative providers um so currently in klay county we have 42 child foster care homes licensed 32 of those 42 are non-relative
homes and then 10 are relative homes we have 17 non relative providers in the currently and then nine non-relative applications in process so uh this is
down a total of five from last year um and that was we had one family who adopted the child another um was due to a reunification uh those were both relative providers um and then we had a
couple of our non-relative providers decide to longer be a foster care provider and then one moved out of county who is still providing foster care in another part of the state so and then in addition to gail and alex's
duties um as licensers um gail also assists child protection staff with all of their placements so anytime a child is going to be placed into one of our licensed homes in klay county gailitating that placement to ensure
it's an appropriate placement the foster parents are equipped to meet the child's needs and just make sure that so that we're supporting the foster parents and ensuring a successful placement um and then g alex um assists
with our county adoption so they have pretty pretty big uh roles within the county jessica can i ask you a question on the um application so so we currently have 32 on the nonre related yep and
there's another 17 that are applying to become is that okay uh and then so it looks like the relative we could almost double that if they were all went through the pipeline so how long does that process take on that application you know it
varies greatly um and actually in may i believe it's going to be at the may 6th board meeting we have um gail julie and karen coming to meet with all of you um it's foster parent appreciation month and then also childc care awareness or
childcare provider awareness month so our plan is to bring proclamations to the board on may 6th and then quinn and i have also asked kind of provide a more indepth overview of what the licensing process looks like because when you look
at this i mean for our relative homes almost half are in application and so they're going to come and just provide a real detailed like overview so that you guys can have a thorough understanding of why sometimes it does take so long um
what are some of the barriers what we as a county do to try to eliminate as many barriers as possible so so they'll be coming on may 6 so just one question though is background checks one of them you know what we've seen a lot of improvements thanks to assistance from
this board with the background check process um we do have a fingerprinting location up and running in klay county there's also a location over in fargo that our applicants can go to so we're not seeing that as the issue that it was
a few years ago okay so it's really just the time it takes gail is going to bring her orientation manual which is this thick uh you know and just kind of go through really what it takes to become licensed so you know it's a great
experience for people you know they learn a ton uh but there expectations put on these licensed providers so ensuring that they're well equipped before they are actually licensed to take vulnerable children into their care
is kind of our goal we want to make sure that they can provide the best possible support to these kids that they can the one thing that i'll add with the relative license homes is as long as the relative is in the licensing process we can place children with the relatives one of the things from the child protection standpoint is if we find
relatives say eight hours after the children are removed from the home we will do a home safety check first we'll physically go to that relative's home we'll look at the physical conditions of the home run preliminary background checks of what's publicly available to
us and assume works and it's safe enough we'll immediately place the children there and then begin the licensing process we don't want that the the barrier of the time that you're referencing to stop from that relative actually providing care for their family
members immediately good good point thank you all right next we'll move on to family child care so we have two staff in this program area karen helm and julie clear uh so currently we have 127 family child care homes licensed in
klay county we have 14 applications in process um so this is down six from last year so we were at 133 uh that's due to we had a retirement a provider decided to have a change in her career uh we had
another provider who's working towards opening a center so that will increase capacity in the long run um and then we did have one revocation for family child care uh last year as well and then as i mentioned julian karen also carry a
small um corporate foster care case load so so some of our recruitment efforts this is just an ongoing area i think we talk about recruitment at every staff meeting that we have for licensing uh we're always seeking opportunities so
you as the board if you events that you think it would be appropriate for our staff to be at please share that with quinn or myself um uh one of the primary things we do is we create all of our own marketing material uh so that we
have handouts and things that we can distribute at the um um we do get quite a bit of support from mandy olsen over at gis uh with creating those materials so we appreciate her assistance there um we
also uh through support from the board a few years ago are still we still have us some of that arpa funds available we were awarded $87,000 and i think we've still got around $30,000 left um so we're still utilizing um
those and incentives um to promote program growth um and those incentives are for both family child care and corporate foster care uh one of the biggest things that we're doing with that is we're offering a referral bonus um so if a current licensed provider
refers another person to go through the application process and once that person gets um their license we do offer a $250 reward to the provider who referred them uh we created some promotional videos this year for family child care um and
then we offer free trainings twice a year to all of our licensed providers in klay county and we actually just had one this past saturday so jessica um the one of the things i've heard about is what's going on is the rule making process is
there some discussion about changing rules of inh home child care and uh and it sound like some of those things could be quite cumbersome for some of our providers what is there what's the
latest on that well um there's always changes i think that family child care is a very hot button issue um they have a lot of advocates themselves as through their provider groups um so they do a lot of um policy and um advocacy at the
state level um so dhs is trying to streamline and modernize um the licensing areas um another difference with this is both fost child foster care and family child
care are going to be moving out of the realm of dhs and under the department of children youth and families so there will be some changes coming with that all of our statutes and everything are going to be moving um from one rule to a new one um but yes i mean there's with
family child care there's changes every year um they did release kind of a first draft um there was a lot of uh providers who opposed um some of the language i think that dhs does a pretty
good job interacting and seeking input from our providers and our licensers throughout the state um so we were all given opportunities to attend um meetings with dhs here are kind of some of the reasons for some of the changes
and then provide um maybe um other opportunities to try to meet in the middle with the providers so there was another um potential language issued a few weeks ago um i think that's being met with a little bit less opposition um
okay you know you you know i think there's there's some issues even getting down to you know if you have a inhome child care facility how how you have to what you have to do for your playground equipment
and all those types of things and those things are changing or proposed changes to those things and and a lot of times those changes come with expenses and you know you know when we're trying to you know you've just mentioned you have 30,000 left in your arpa funds and
we we're trying to find ways to get get more um you know child care provider inhome child care providers and the the more um i you know i sort of we want to make sure that it you know it's safe but
um at some point do we do we govern ourselves or we're not going to have anybody wanting to do it it's a good question mr commissioner yeah commissioner krabnoff uh just with
that new department do you know enough about it yet will they create what what was the main reason for them doing that number one and do you see some new efficiencies that may help do you want to address that
i don't know that it was due to creating efficiencies um when they split dhs into dcyf they tried to figure out which departments would go where with dcyf they're trying to keep ma mainly all things related to children in one department so the licensing component of
that moved just due to the nature of the fact that they provide service to kids and oversight to children's our adult foster care will stay with dhs so now we'll be working under and next week you'll see that a lot of these changes happen in our financial services too where adult programs will stay at at dhs
but yet child financial programs went to dcyf so again i think it's from the state level it's that's how they had to organize it i think at the county level we're all a little concerned as to then it's two departments kind of having their voice in what used to be one right
and it makes two separate pots of money for utilization i believe they just took the money that was allocated to dhs for those programs and it just went to dcyf i believe yeah i think a lot of it is yet to be seen commissioner
krabanha and exactly how that's all going to work out yeah i just really became more aware of it just over the summer and i'm just always wondering why you know i think part of the reasons for it was dhs was just getting so big you know they had so many programs that they
were administering so i think wanting to focus you know have minnesota have a focus on our children and youth and families and so this made sense to try to shrink the program so a lot of the staff that we worked with through
licensing at dhs are moving over to dcyf so we feel like those relationships you know at the state level will continue um you know we've always had a very good working relationship with dhs that'll continue but we know there will
be hiccups and some extra work that it'll take for us to make this move well it's refreshing to hear you feel they listen to the voices out there in the state yes licensing is very um at the state level they are play a very active role
in what we do at the county level so all right next slide so i will move on to my disability services updates um so within disability services i kind of have three different program areas um so the first one i'll
talk about is our adult and disability intake um so we have two staff who provide intake um services for the three adult program areas at social services um so we provide intake for behavioral
health so kirsten leard's unit um holly's unit and then obviously my unit um so this requires the these staff to have vast understanding of county services um so anything from in choices civil commitments substance use
disorders mark reports uh waiver programs cfss and um and just kind of to give an overview of what we're seeing quinn's got it kind of graphed out there for you um we did have a little bit from last year so in
2023 we had 1,233 intakes and in 2024 we had 1,21 so two less from the previous year uh and then we have bria krauss uh she
replaced miriam danielson this past um winter um so bria has done a great job stepping into uh that role and she's really catching on quickly so we appreciate her and then kylie is provides backup intake when um it's busy
or you know if bria's got meetings or is going to be away from the office at all so all right uh the other realm within disability services is special needs basic care or smbc um so we provide care
coordination to ukare enrolles through a contract that we share with public health um so we have two staff uh public health has three staff that share this contract with us um and just to give a background so care coordination is
provided to all special needs basic care members to assist them with accessing and navigating the health care system and support services um so this program area again has seen significant changes you can see that huge spike in um our uh
members or case loads from 2022 to 2023 and that just has to do with a change in how ukare assigned members to their delegates as well as the fact that now ukare is the only health plan providing smb so there used to be um health
partners also used to be an um contract did not go through the rfp process through dhs and so um you care everybody fell under that and our numbers skyrocketed so um we did end up
hiring a new staff in 2024 um amber carroll um she was working with us in a variable hour um position but she would move to full-time to support this um increase in case load so um in 2024 we
averaged 486 members so and just in reference to three years prior it was 112 so we've seen very significant growth in that area so and then my last area is men choices um so in social
service and a half initial assessors um and then public initial assessors um and we do that so that we're able to offer a multidisciplinary approach to our assessments whether someone's having psychosocial areas or more health
related we're able to align based off the person's needs um and then we have three reassessors um so initial assessments are completed for people county seeking to see what services they may be eligible for they may be pro
referred by a community agency their medical provider schools um i mean we get referrals from pretty much any um entity that you can think then the reassessments is done once someone has
been found eligible for a program area and then they need to have an annual reassessment to maintain their eligibility for the program but uh and that gives an example of kind of what men choices is and what what we use it for um in 2023 we launched a new version
of men choices um so that was fully implemented in april of 2024 uh that came with quite a few hiccups um the software was not fully functionable um so for almost a year we were having to
do a lot of handmade corrections um rerun eligibility kind of map things out on paper because the tool was determining eligibility inappropriately but um that has now been corrected so and then yes
question for you the total reassessments do you reassess everybody every year or is it yes everyone who is open to a disability waiver um has to have an assessment every year if they're receiving rule 185 case management they
have the option to wave it but for everyone open to cac ca caddy uh the dd waiver holly will talk a little bit more about the specific waiverss but um they have to have an annual reassessment and so you can see that our growth in that
area has been very significant over the past three years so we did add a new reassessor position who's starting this year mr chair commissioner bear if you remember when we brought the request to the board for the new re uh reassessor
position that was one of the things that we did reference was there was some legislation um to be able to wave that annual reassessment for the folks that receive these services that legislation did not go through so it is every year i think the legislation would have been
every three years yes instead so there is legislation currently being discussed to make it a abbreviated assessment um but still requiring that everyone have the annual assessment but that's still yet to be seen and either way whether it's the
full assessment or an abbreviated assessment i don't i don't see it being a huge timesaver for my staff but how how long does it take to assess um an initial assessment's between six to eight hours um and you know the
face-toface time with the person is maybe three to four of that time but writing their care plan gathering medical records you know processing the paperwork if we have to refer them for a smrt if they're not certified disabled working with our financial unit to make
sure that they're on the correct type of ma um if they are going to go on a certain program they have to be on a certain type of ma um you know working with the families working with their providers um so six to eight hours is kind of an average um for reassessments
um you know this past year when everything was going into a brand new system those were probably taking about that same amount of time but now that everybody is in men choic's revision we're expecting to be able to do those a little bit quicker because we were
having to do data entry on every person you know entering their name addresses phone numbers contacts medical providers diagnosis you know so now that's done um so these should you know be able to take a little bit less i'd say two to three hours for a reassessment maybe four
depending on the complexities of the person and one more question on that more on the reassessment side they need to come to you you go to them or do you do it virtually you know what the intent of
the assessment is that we evaluate the person in their home so that we can see what their needs are um there are circumstances where that's not realistic they may have a dog that's super aggressive and they don't
allow people in their home or if they're a heavy smoker um you know things like that so we try to accommodate um those circumstances but typically they are completed in the person's home thank
you mhm uh and then just my last little plug i wanted to give was on cfss and this is really kind of a program area that falls um under both social services and public health but um susie and i and holly kind of talked
about some of the issues we've had with this and i just wanted to more or less bring it to the board's attention um so community first services and supports was launched in october of 2024 to replace pca uh pca is probably the
largest um state plan service um you know that we associate with through um the programs that we approve um so let's see um of the 946 pca
agencies that were enrolled to provide pca only 320 are eligible to provide cfss so there was a lot of confusion when this program launched at the provider level as far as what they needed to do to become licensed to
provide cfss so dhs is still in the process of um making that happen um 50,000 motans receive pca yet there are only 18 consultation services providers um available to assist them with
transitioning to cfss so one of the other areas with cfss is it added this new layer of consultation services um so it's a requirement whereas this had never been in the picture with pca um
but it is for cfss and so all 50,000 people need to meet with one of these 18 agencies to get their cfss services started so um so there's a significant lack of providers for both people
providing the direct care i mean there 600 less agencies than what there were for um pca to provide direct care and then again just this kind of stalemate where we're at with this new requirement of consultation services um and then
just for example of what we're seeing within klay county we've approved 70 people for cfss since it launched and only 24 so about a third of them have been able to work with a consultation services provider and this is going back to october 1st so we are seeing
significant delays with getting people access to the services that they need to remain living in their homes so and this was written a few weeks ago uhly to prep it for board so the numbers have increased a little bit um but it's still kind of dire but so i just wanted
to bring that to your attention because i'm sure you guys are hearing about it at other meetings and whatnot that you attend so so what happens to them in the meantime they don't go without services so unless if they were a current pca
recipient they can get six months 6 to 12 months of transition pca this is specifically for new people so any those are 70 new people that we've assessed and only onethird of them have been able to get a hold of and work with a
consultation services provider so they just wait and they go without the service so well because it bothers me um so are these
services a local entity or were they um we do not have any local consultation services providers um i'd say the majority of them are probably in the cities but they're really scattered throughout the state we just
happen right here in klay county they are looking for new consultation services providers are obviously so there's nothing stopping an agency but you can't be a pca agency and a consultation services provider and
provide the care to the person there has to be kind of a delegation of role but thank you obviously a little frustrating for to have implementation from the state level without the necessary infrastructure to
uphold it just imagine that uh with that we'll move on to holly's division uh i will kick it over to holly wner go ahead take it over good morning commissioners like a supervisor home and community based disability services um
over at social services um so just to start us off i have um 16 amazing staff in my unit 14 of which are case managers and two are case aids um so just kind of um transitioning from jessica's men choices assessment um when her staff
complete an initial min choices assessment and they're determined eligible for a disability um services or disability program they're assigned a case manager in my unit um and so that case manager would
begin to um identify services and supports to address the needs identified in the person's men choices assessment um and then they'll work with the person on making referrals coordinating services um getting those things set up in the person's support plan and
monitoring that support plan for the next year um after about a year the person has an annual min choices recess reassessment like jessica had mentioned we start that process over where um the men choices reassessment determines eligibility for disability programs if
the person continues to be keep working with the case manager and we align um services with the person's needs so again we my case managers their focus is on person- centered planning making referrals coordinating services
advocacy and then um that support plan that they write with the person they're monitoring the services that are in that support plan um in addition to our disability waiverss we do have um our rule 185 developmental disability case
management which i'll get into a little bit further or a little bit later in the slides um and then just to note we did add two case managers um the fall or november of 2022 and then january of 2023 i do have two case aids in my unit
um they really kind of are the backbone to our unit doing all of those administrative tasks tasks related to our waiver programs rule 185 they also provide some support to um jessica's min choices assessments um her assessors and
reassessors as well as some smbc um care coordinators um so the majority of um the program areas my staff uh work on is our disability waiver programs um and this is um our medicaid funded
servicesable for a disability waiver a person has to be a minnesota resident um be on medicaid um have a disability and be certified disabled um then have a need for um uh services as an alternative to an institution um as well
as each waiver has um their own individual requirement for level of care um and our focus of our disability waiverss is you know to fund services to help the person live as independently as possible in the community while promoting health independence and um
community integration so it's really an alternative to an institutional placement like a nursing home hospital or intermediate care facility for people with developmental disabilities we have four disability waiver types um the first one is our
brain injury waiver um this is um a waiver for people diagnosed with a brain injury who would require um the level of care provided in like a specialized nursing facility or neurobbehavioral hospital um in 2024 we had five consumers on this waiver and the
previous year the the number in parenthesis is the number of people we served pre in the 2023 year so no change in that program area um our next disability waiver is um community alternative care which is cac um this is
the waiver that serves our um most medically fragile or chronically ill individuals requiring that hospital level of care um so we work closely with our public health on administering this waiver program and in fact our public
health nurses are the lead case managers in this program area where um my social workers and social services provide that secondary support so a lot of times um these folks are living in their home and have um may have 24-hour nursing support
um because of their medical needs the third waiver is our community access for disability inclusion our our caddy waiver and this is our by far our biggest waiver um program area this is for people um with disabilities who would require that level of support
provided in a nursing home and so in 2024 um we served 567 individuals um and the year prior that was just um a few more with 571 and our last disability waiver program is um or developmental
disability waiver this is for individuals diagnosed with a developmental disability or related condition requiring the level of um support provided in an intermediate care facility for people with developmental disabilities um and so again 216
consumers last year and 204 the year before so those are our medicaid waiver programs in addition to that um my staff do provide ro 185 developmental disability case management um and this is a countyf funded case management
service for people with a developmental disability or related condition um in 2024 we had 130 consumers and the year prior it was 140 um under this program area there's a few other options the
person may be receiving um one is the family support grant um this is a statewide cash grant for people under the age of 25 to purchase disability related services and supports um the other option is sills or semi-independent living skills um we
have 27 people utilizing this program this is a combination of state and county funded um services for people 18 and older with a developmental disability or related condition and needing that support to live successfully in the community so this is where they may have staff coming in the
home helping them maybe with budgeting maintaining their house getting to appointments and so forth and then um the other um subset of services is our county funded dt&h and we have four consumers in this program
area um it's for um people who are 18 or older with a developmental disability or related condition and um just need that assistance to develop and maintain life skills to fully participate in the community and then lastly um the other
service area that we provide in my unit is relocation service coordination um for people under the age of 65 and i have one staff who primarily works in this area with the goal being um it's medicaid funded case management um to
assist eligible um moving from an institution back into the community or their own home so a lot of times we'll see people who are living in or who are in a nursing home and want to relocate back into the community in their own home or maybe a foster home and need
services and support set up before they can leave the nursing home so we have one case manager who focuses on that area yes commissioner if i did my math right you have about 925 consumers of all these and are those 14 case managers
working with those 925 yes yes um okay so this graph shows just kind of the trends with our average um case load sizes so starting in 2022 we had an average of just about 59 um and then
that's gradually increased over the last couple years with um sorry i got to look at my a little closer 24 and 25 um right now looking like our case loads are staying relatively the same so again
just to point out um in the fall of 2022 we added a case manager and then january of 2023 we added um another one so that's where the 14 case managers um come from um our you know case loads continue to um the people that were
serving on these case loads um contend continue to have kind of intense um complex needs um as jessica spoke about the launch of cfss that has also added some additional tasks and work workload
to my case managers with that process um and then um we are seeing this last year this was a a policy that's always been in place but was waved for a few years due to the covid rules um but case managers need to work with the person to
have services authorized within 60 days of starting a medicaid waiver program so um that really becomes um that intensive work upfront with connecting with the person helping them identify services and then finding a service provider who
has staff available to work with them which a lot of times can be one of our biggest barriers is to find um local providers that have staff just given the the workforce issues and that can take on that referral so sometimes those services are delayed um beyond 60 days
because of those factors um but they certainly do their best to to get things implemented as soon as they can um let's see so in 2024 april of 2024 we launched um fully launched um our revision um and as jessica spoke
that's the that's the tool that men choices assessments as well as our support plans are completed or completed in um and so we've um are at 100% with utilizing that tool um as with new tools
um sometimes they're not always fully equipped for um our work and there were some delays and additional kind of workload issues just working through the bugs of that that online tool um in november of 2024 this is
exciting news for us we were awarded a lead agency um capacity building grant from dhs um with the focusing employment opportunities for people with disabilities and increasing that competitive employment um the
statement first um state which is requiring um all disability case managers to approach people who are of working age with the idea that they if they're interested they can work um competitively in the community so we are
in the beginning phases of um that grant working on an action plan to increase our employment supports um with the end goal of increasing people who are working in our community and then um just kind of um i wanted to put this on the board's radar
starting july 1st of 2025 we will have um a new policy to follow for people on our disability waiver program areas who are looking at um residential services so starting july 1st um people who are interested in living in a corporate
foster home or customized living setting will need to meet certain criteria um before they can access these services and case managers will need to work with um that individual to ensure that they've explored all other lease restrictive options and have informed
choice before um um authorizing the residential services if that person is eligible for that program so um so that's an overview of of holly's division as well um holly doesn't know this but i'm going to put her on the spot a little bit uh holly
was awarded uh a statewide exemplary leadership award at this year's mssa conference her staff uh came to me a while ago and asked if they would me and or asked me if i would support them nominating her for the regional award
which of course uh we did and she won they did it at the state level too and she won that as well um so she had no in there i swapped it out last minute um but i just i wanted to bring that to your attention of holly's absolutely amazing uh leadership ability her staff
have absolutely nothing but wonderful things to say about her uh and i concur as well um it's really great to see that um kind of all your hard work and effort was recognized and honored at the statewide level so congratulations congratulations thank you
and with that uh i would yield to any questions that any of you have okay commissioner mojo thank you uh thanks for the helpful to uh all of us so that we can understand really the scope of the work that your departments do so uh congratulations on um leading
such an amazing team we're really really proud of you uh i'm just going to maybe talk a little bit about uh state budgets and implications not only the state but the federal changes on a lot of things and um i know that's a really tricky time when you're working with uh
constituents and folks that you serve so uh just know that uh we're with you in the frustrations just trying to make sense of it but also part of a larger um scope of conversation at the state level i know particularly yesterday both the senate and house released their uh
supplemental budget proposals there's a lot in there that got worse uh for counties in regards to what the governor's cost shifts were and now what we're anticipating what uh the house and senate are anticipating so um any way you can continue to help us share that
story uh is really helpful um just as we mitigate that issue so thank you okay anything else all right thank you so much thank you all right next we have our committee
reports we'll start with um commissioner bear put your mic up last tuesday after county board we had a county edc eda quarterly discussion where we had we discussed
about city and county projects in the area we had representations from holly barnesville and morehead there did we have one from dworth not at that and we had great discussion there on
that then on thursday we had springs roll cities and county meeting where we had updates from dworth glendon and holly about what was happening in their cities and we also had staff there to give updates to them about what's going on in the county i'd
like to have a special thanks to jackie for helping putting that on it was a great communication and a great great meeting then on friday myself and commissioner campbell and administrator larson met with manomomen county
officials the administrator starky commissioner shronborn and commissioner darko we discuss discussed the white earth nation buying 288 acres of land just east of 336 and we also had discussion about
having a casino in your community and how it is working with the tribe we had good discussion and yesterday i was part of the citizens advisory committee at the wild rice watershed district where we elected new officers we elected a new
chairman paul harless from hendram and vice chair kim severson from yulan we also discussed the watershed adding four more members to the advisory committee and we passed a motion for the wild rice wershed board to discuss their strategy on long-term land ownership in the
district right now the wershed owns about 400 450 odd acres of land that does not have a project tied to it and that we are wondering if we should be owning that land or selling that land so we
pushed a that motion on to the board to discuss that then last night i went to the city of felton with and represented the west central water district
with stephanie mr slick and let me bring that up here in my email where we discussed the west central water district memorandum of inclusion with
felton this would be a document where each city in the district would sign to if they want to be part of it or not part of it and felton agreed after we left i got confirmation today that felton agreed to become part of the district they just needed to put down how many get actually a final number on
millions of gallons they use before they sign that and then we also went to them and asked them for aou on their grant
money and they agreed to sign on and give that money to norman county as long as we get them a new map on how that first pipeline would be run and the first phase of that water district would be utilized and they are
on the first phase that granted for $1.75 million so we did that last night and that is all i have to report mr chair just maybe a follow up on that or further explanation so the city of felton had received a $1.5 million
federal grant uh to do upgrades to their water system for transmission line transmission yeah so um then they they just decided that being part of of uh
the west central would be its best option in fulfilling that so um that's good to hear that they've a agreed to that so the other one was uh what other community was it that got the 1.5 norman county as a
whole oh norman county as a whole okay okay yeah yeah all right commissioner airbringer thank you uh short week excuse me short week last week um i also on tuesday attended the county edc eda
quarterly discussion uh we did have a good uh review of what jackie has accomplished on our uh uh klay county website which we're working to make it more accessible to people who are looking for opportunities in our county
um had a good update on what uh the small smaller towns in our community are doing right now towards their uh goals and um overall just look towards the for
future working with this group and that concludes my report thank you commissioner kraboff thank you mr chair um so last uh tuesday i too attended the um edc that's been
talked about i appreciate jackie's work and others uh building upon that uh website to focus on those city uh projects and um developments uh thursday um i had my
children's mental health uh lac group um meeting we had uh about 16 in attendance um very good discussions uh one of the things that uh was um uh interesting for me as well as all
the others we met uh in regard to the family resource center uh we had uh we met our two hires that are now employees of uh cap lp and they'll be the uh navigators of the outreach and uh the
connection hub for uh people in in the work that goes along with the resource center and they uh gave us about a 20 minute presentation it was might nice to meet them they're um seem very talented
and and for being brand new about three weeks into the job they seem to have a large amount of knowledge already so it's uh impressive and uh build upon that um we also um spend time uh in our
development of the lac report to the board that'll be coming in may and uh as a group so that was a big part of it and then also just our agency reports um uh that are just where that interaction
goes with uh the people involved on the committee between the providers so each knows what is each is doing uh later um that morning uh i had a part
of the prtf uh um i commissioner mojo um steve larson the administrator and a couple others involved in our small group um met with henipin uh rep staff from henipin county and uh main topic
and i'll let um commissioner mojo speak a little deeper on this but really about re uh reimbursement rates and then um u the fact how much uh henman county uh has people up here at our west central juvenile center so and they come here
because of the therapies we offer so feather in our cap and good work uh to all uh uh late and then that evening or that late afternoon excuse me would have been uh the meeting with uh rural cities and counties again it was nice hearing
the updates from uh the cities and also our departments thanks to all of them that spoke friday uh we did have a follow-up uh small follow-up group follow-up meeting to the prtf discussion
discussing what we had uh heard with was um henipin uh again commissioner mojo will be um getting set to testify back in um st paul tomorrow she can give more detail
on that and then monday um yesterday uh i was with adult mental health that lac again helping with the development of the lac report that we're going to also hear here are be presented here in may
uh and then uh last night i was part of the m planning commission uh really just uh uh one conditional use permit down in the m industrial park for uh operator towing impound lot and then also the uh
the city is still zoning map amendments is related to commercial properties and they just told us about uh some of the changes mainly in the gateway making them more uh flexible and uh not having
um allowing smaller setbacks more mixed use rather than just being plain commercial so giving more latitude to business owners and other types of development um that's my report you commissioner mojo
thank you mr chair last week after board i attended the highway tracking committee meeting we did have a discussion on uh buffalo red river wershed district uh discussions that are happening with the diversion authority and how we communicate plans moving forward particularly uh to the residents
that might be affected by any delay imposed from the da we discussed the uh motor grader advertisement uh staffing summer work student workers have been hired we do have an opening still with that maintenance worker position and it
was exciting to hear that we've had a handful of employees utilize the cdl training program that this board implemented i attended the klay county edc eda coordination discussion thanks jackie for the presentation on the
website i really think that would be will be a great tool for our residents and businesses as they seek out opportunity within our cities and klay county i attended the west central henipin county uh uh west central regional uh
juvenile center henipin county clay county meeting i just want to say that for the fact um that we were able to uh garner a meeting with henipin county to discuss the creative work that klay
county is doing is huge and um they uh proposed several different things all of which klay county is already vetted through quite well uh it is uh true that we serve 7 to 10 kids from ramsey and henipin county daily at our facility
because of the innovative treatment that we offer the um intensive programming there's a weight list there of about seven currently i think that's really helpful as we discuss uh statewide initiatives uh but also rem reminding
our residents that as we serve other communities that brings in a level of revenue too so um talked about how we can um move forward with the changing landscape with those needs i also attended the spring rural klay county
cities meeting a really um great organization from sarah and jackie on that and also our staff that attended uh it's always really important for cities to be able to go directly to departments when they have questions and so i appreciate having all of the
representation there a really great dialogue on mutual ways we uh work together to serve our residents friday i attended a meeting with the chamber of commerce the city of morehead representatives about funding concerns
for our capital investment bill in regards to flood mitigation i think it's really important that uh morehead klay county and the buffalo red are um actively raising up the total funds for projects that we've brought forward uh
forward to the basin uh you know i know that there's a conversation in north dakota about minnesota not paying minnesota not paying their fair share uh we've secured well over hund00 million for work in our area and so making sure
that we are able to articulate that correctly bring that uh number forward and um go from there i think uh commissioner campbell is well aware of this but uh between 2004 and 2018 the buffalo red brought in $34 million in
state funding to work through the oakport mitigation uh land owners up there have contributed uh uh well over $1.4 4 million to the ongoing expenses there and so as you sit around those diversion uh board meeting uh tables
we'll get the numbers from klay county and the buffalo red for you to be able to have that as well so talked about uh the capital investment piece we have testified at the state on that um the deadline last friday doesn't necessarily
affect capital investment deadlines we'll continue to work forward with that uh number going forward then we did meet friday also on the prtf uh juvenile non-secure juvenile bill really great that we have another
hearing on that tomorrow i'll head down to st paul tomorrow to have more uh discussions on that but yesterday i'm happy to report that our prtf bill did make it into the first round of the hhs omnimous bill proposal uh we just need
to work really hard to get it there uh commissioner or uh representative keeler uh was pretty loud in regards to making sure there's a rural representation with that so uh great work to all of you as you've continued to lift that with our colleagues across the state on that and
then um i think that concludes my reports except to say that my son's first choice for a college tour was a state university it just happened to be the one in the south bunniesville my report
thank you commissioner mojo all right i uh i also attended on april 1st the highway tracking committee meeting commissioner mojo did go through that um i know on the motor graders
um there we dave did mention that there's three local entities the city of morehead the city of dorth and the city of glendon that are interested in in our used motor graders and i think you know um he's been working justin's been
working through lori and and brian to make sure that we follow the proper procedures i think there's some stipulations in law that allow us to um you know provide those that
equipment to other government agencies at least that's the way justin explained it to us so um more to come on that um he did have three new student workers hired for the summer and as
commissioner some staff uh members that had utilized the cdl policy which is really good um then i also attended the uh edc eda meeting on that same
day um and i you know i the the website thing is really big and i know jackie is really working hard on that and i i know i just happened to talk briefly with steve and i i i really think that
we need to there's an awful lot of additional leg work that was talked about on on how we can provide pieces of information to put on um that economic development link or
website and the fact that we're we have these local universities available to us that could assist in that and i know maybe steve you can comment on i think you talked with some others on that and reaching out to those uh college
campuses but i really think that they could um provide some additional leg work that jackie would not have to do um in in that regard and and really be helpful in terms of
um seeking their education degrees as well it can be a real beneficial thing for them uh then the rural cities meeting again we had an awful lot of our county staff was there and gave good reports
um i guess i i i'm a little disappointed that we only had three of our cities at that meeting it would nice to see that have a have a larger attendance but uh thank you to all of our
uh department leaders who were able to be there and and provide information and answer any questions that our local communities may have regarding our services and that uh i in regards to commissioner
mojo's discussion on the um amount of money that the state of minnesota has put in for flood protection you know and she mentioned that there's been over a hund00 million i think that's been put in place she mentioned those numbers and
that most of those numbers were for the in town protections within the city of morhead which are still are qualifying numbers towards the whole project and she mentioned 32 to $34 million in the oakport project that
happened and i know that well because i worked on it from the very beginning from 2004 on and and and that money is not part of that 100 million that's those those are additional dollars that were put in place and had
had we moved forward with that project um immediately following the 97 flood we started to work on that but had the state not invested in that when they did it would have been a requirement to do as part of this this project now
so even though the $32 million was previous to the diversion project that $32 million would have been an additional ask that we would have had to do uh to make sure that that that area
met the 37 foot flood protection area so so in essence that the state has invested not only theund i think the i think i've heard mayor carlson say that that number is upwards towards 150 and 125 million um and then you can add on
that 32 to 34 so commissioner yeah and it's a it's relevant to that that those were prices 20 years ago or or 15 years ago right and if we those costs were rolled forward now they'd be considerably more but it was paid for
promptly which is the issue we have now is these projects need to be paid for before it runs up higher all right that concludes my report steve thank you mr chair last week i participated in the highway tracking
meeting which has been well covered uh also that day participate in the edc eda uh we are going to be having a meeting with karen lowour and and derek le point uh this week to further look at the relationships with the schools uh so to
to build off uh your commissioner campbell's comments uh so we're appreciative of uh the connections that we were able to make during that uh during that meeting uh that afternoon i department head evaluation uh on the second met with derek le point on some
of the different issues that we talked about uh throughout our meeting on the third i participated in the meeting uh with henipin county that's been well covered and also participated in the rural cities and county meeting uh on the fourth met with the representatives
from manomomen appreciative of them uh coming to town and willing willingness to to meet with us i participated in the call with representative keeler uh that or representative keeler on our prtf non-secured detention discussion uh that's been well covered that afternoon
i met with derek le point and dan molly uh in regards to issues that are going on within the county and also within the city of morehead uh yesterday talked with mr melton on a series of county issues also met with darren and sheriff emp uh just a few notes if you look at
our website uh this week is uh is severe weather awareness week uh and so each day there's a highlighted highlighted area of how to deal with uh different aspects of severe weather uh also yesterday we did receive notification that the office of cannabis cannabis
management uh has finally received approvals to move forward with their business license licenses and so uh again the state will work through the licensing process and as we talked about last week uh the the counties and cities and potentially townships are then be
responsible for the registration portion uh and so those uh again our public health department has uh made their services available to uh for the registration portion uh if not the cities and county or townships will be
responsible for that moving forward uh and uh lastly i know he doesn't look a day over 25 but it's darren's birthday today so happy birthday that concludes my report mr chair thank you brian do you have anything for us
okay birthday boy anything for us today well the nice thing about going last is you've covered everything that i was going to cover so the the few things that wasn't covered was that uh i had a meeting on wednesday with anna i talked about several different uh hr items
going on had a meeting with civic plus and and mark sloan on some of our automation for our forms um on thursday i had a meeting with kevin kassenberg m jacisman and mark sloan to discuss the repairarian aid which we'll have we're having a meeting right after this one to
discuss the the buffer committee meeting uh met with kimberly on to discuss some issues record uh on recording of properties associated with the diversion pro process that was on thursday also on thursday i attended the henipin county uh meeting to discuss a prtf and the
rural cities county meeting um friday met with jackie and matt regarding items discussed uh at the eda kind of doing some uh brainstorming there and uh yesterday continue to review the county code uh in preparation for a meeting on
wednesday with uh brian melton and mark sloan where we've been going over the county code to try to update it we've been doing that weekly now on probably have a few more weeks to go but uh slow but sure we're making it that's all i have thank you jackie
thank you mr chair um as steve mentioned it's um severe weather awareness week so on thursday april 10th we will have a tornado drill at the klay county buildings at 1:45 p.m good thank you and i i did want to
mention too and i didn't include in my report that i the meeting that i had along with commissioner bar and and administrator larson with folks from manomomen county and that was in regards to just discussions regarding
um how you communicate and deal with um the wider tribe you know they've had an awful lot of experiences with them and so they wanted to sit down and and talk with us so that was that was that
meeting commissioner krabanov uh to that note maybe just for the public um i don't know that they are going to be on our agenda on the 15th is that correct uh mr mr chair commissioner kabanghov i did receive a correspondence from their
government relations person yesterday that indicated that uh uh they would be available on the 22nd to and i just wanted to say that because it was in the in the paper that it was going to be on the 15th so
all right all right if there's no other business we will be adjourned Part: 2
all right good morning everybody it's 8:30 we'll call this morning's meeting commissioners to order for Tuesday April 8th our first item is the approval of a the agenda and we do have two additions
one is a request approval from of the Caslay inter agency council on homeless proclamation and the other one we have um we do have Kathy on for one um open position and she's asking for a
second one today so there's I'll make a motion with the additions of the two on the agenda second we have a motion by Commissioner Bear second by Commissioner Abinger any further discussion any further discussion seeing
none all in favor signify by saying I i oppose the same sign motion carried the agenda is approved we'll move on to citizens to be heard do we have any citizens to be heard on items not on the agenda
mr chair I have been working with the citizen who had said that he was going to be here this morning but I do not see him in the audience at this time all right and I do believe we all got that communication um of what he wanted to speak we'll see
how if he shows up if we have time we can maybe allow him at another part of the meeting all right so we'll move on then to the approval of the bills and vouchers mr chair uh Commissioner just a a note
that uh in a past meeting you approved the full or the second half payment uh to the FM chamber and the Greater Fargo head economic development for Innovate 28 uh when you made the request or when you made the request that we that they
pay for half of it earlier this year uh we asked them for resubmitting uh the an invoice for half of the amount they did not do so so and so in your packet today there's a $185,000 uh total dollar amount uh in there uh for for your consideration
all right so move to approve the pay the bills okay we have a motion second okay a motion by Commissioner Krabangh second by Commissioner Abinger any further discussion on the bills and
vouchers any further discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying I i oppose the same sign motion carried all right next we'll move on to our approval of minutes from March 25th
i'll make a motion to approve the minutes from March 25th 2025 second okay we have a motion by Commissioner Bear second by Commissioner Krabanhoff any further discussion any further discussion seeing none all in favor signify by
saying I i oppose the same sign motion carried all right our next item is request approval to fill open RN position morning Kathy we'll take both of your two items while you're here okay
good morning Mr chair and commissioners i am requesting I had one uh agenda item for an open position i received a second verbal um resignation yesterday so it's two positions that are in our adult health program um and case management
services so two full-time positions um the case loads are high so we're hoping to fill those um fairly quickly although we're not getting a lot of RN um applicants so we're always challenged with that um we can hire either a
two-year or a four-year RN in this area program area so um there would be savings you know if a two-year RN is on a different grade um the one person that's leaving is um at the end of the scale so we would be hiring um the early
steps so there would be some savings um in that regard um but we are working with the health plans and DHS so the funding flows through those for the nurses providing these services to um elderly and others in the community
questions i have one question yes Commissioner Bear how many RNs do you have that do this work um it's a guess i I have a lot of RNs i think um a dozen I would say and I'll be
presenting our department update in a couple weeks so I'll have all the numbers of staff that we have do you anticipate any savings uh to to the county's budget on this yes so um at the top of that scale um the wage is the
4769 so the one individual is at the top of the scale the second one is kind of in the lower half um but we would hire at step one or if need be requesting to have step two or three depending on
their experience so there would be you know definitely a savings um with those positions both of them yeah um just follow up you said two year or four year is there a priority to you well the priority is fouryear obviously
um but in this in many program areas we can't hire two-year RNs but in this program area we can um but the priority is a four-year that would be our um that's what what we would like to recommend but we do have some two-year
RNs as well thank you they're one grade difference so the RNs are on one grade the two-year RNs are on a on a um grade just below that okay i'm assuming these positions would not be subject to backfill
um I'm am not aware of anyone that is interested in moving to this program area so yes no they would not with that I'll make a motion to advertise and hire uh two full-time registered nurses
second we have a motion by Commissioner Krabanov any further discussion any further discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying I i oppose the same sign motion carried all right thank you
we're ready to go next we have a approval of propos proposal for paving testing just a have a second piece i don't know i He's here the addition you had mentioned doing the addition
oh okay well let's let's do Justin and we'll do the Good morning so the item that I have is three proposals from Braraw Intertech for pavement testing on Cassad 3 CASA 10 and then also a mix design for a CIR and FDR project on CASA
21 so these are three projects that are on our five-year plan just something I budget for every year just to ensure we're testing a couple years out just to make sure the fixes that we have on the five-year plan are the correct ones and that way if something does come back a little bit different we can adjust well
before the project's set to be designed and bid any questions i guess I have one question yes so so this company would go out and test the roads that we have now yep if they move up or down on the 5-year plan uh not
necessarily up or down just that we're so bunch of it's borings and then the one on 21 is actually doing mixed designs so it's not unless something came back really really bad it wouldn't move down on the 5-year plan just to make sure that what I have as a fix is
the correct one okay all right and it also helps us to when we're putting plans through state aid it'll tell us exactly how many inches of batumis we have to add to make sure that it's a 10 ton road all right so the the request is to
move approval for three proposals for Brun Intertech to provide pavement testing and mixed design services mr here I'll offer a motion to approve all right we have a motion by Commissioner Mojo second by Commissioner Bear any further
discussion any further discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying I i oppose the same sign motion carried all right well let's take this um other Yeah thanks Justin let's take this next uh agenda addition here while we have
Rory here good morning Rory good morning Commissioner Campbell commissioners uh I'm here on behalf of the Caslay Inter Agency Council on Homelessness um it is a group that is formed to help facilitate a a regionwide
cross-sectional um addressing of the home the complex homelessness issues that we've all heard about um to try to uh find best practices to identify solutions to uh
prevent and end homelessness and so this Friday at the United Way at 9:00 a.m there's a joint proclamation in each of the five cities in the metro area Fargo Morehead West Fargo Horus and Dworth
um signed proclamations this agency is asking that Klay County consider joining that as well and attending that um event on Friday and so before you you have uh you have this this joint proclamation
okay i'm I'm not certain we're going to have I this was fairly new so I'm not certain about the availability for somebody to be there on on Friday in ter I can be there okay all right you'll get me the information Rory all right thank you all right so we
have here and we'll go around and I was going to maybe just suggest that Rory just read it all but but we'll we'll help out all right whereas homelessness is a critical issue affecting individuals and families across our region with
farreaching impacts on health safety and economic stability and whereas the cities of Fargo Morehead West Fargo Dworth and Horus and the county of Clay recognize the v fundamental need of coordinated and comprehensive approaches to address the homelessness in our
community and whereas local service providers community organizers and government agencies have long been dedicated to addressing the homeless addressing homelessness yet there remains a need for enhanced collaboration and strategic alignment to
ensure the most effective and lasting solutions and whereas stable and affordable housing is essential for the well-being of our residents and the overall strength of our communities requiring leadership policy innovation and resource alignment to prevent and
end homelessness and whereas ending homelessness means making it rare brief and one time by preventing possible and ensuring that when homelessness does occur it is quick quickly resolved with permanent housing
solutions and whereas whereas the mayors of Fargo Morehead West Fargo Dworth and Horus and the Klay County Board of Commissioners are committed to fostering regional cooperation in ensuring that homelessness is addressed with urgency
compassion and evidence-based strategies and whereas the establishment of the Clay Inter agency Council on Homelessness led by the United Way of Caslay and the FM Coalition to End Homelessness will bring
together local government governments service providers advocates and those who lived experience to drive solutions align resources and implement strategies that prevent our region and whereas this council will serve as a collaborative
form for policy development datainformed decision-making and the advancement of best practices to reduce the homelessness and support pathways to stable housing now therefore we the cities of Fargo Morehead West
Fargo Dworth and Horus and the county of Clay do hereby proclaim our commitment to addressing homelessness as a region regional priority and formally announce the formation of the Caslay Inter Agency encouraging all residents
organizations and leaders to join in this vital effort to ensure that everyone in our community has a safe and stable place to call Wow all right there you have it oh oh that's that's that's just the
don't need to read that last part i uh strongly support this and I would make a motion that uh we uh join in this uh joint mayoral population uh proclamation second all right we have a motion and a
second on the pro proclamation any further disc any further discussion seeing none all in favor i oppose the same sign motion carried all right thank you right thank you i
just want to say to chair and commissioners thanks for hearing this on on short notice i know that homelessness is an important issue for all you and so as this came forward a little later than than uh the agenda after the agenda came out i appreciate you hearing that very good thank
you all right next we have our annual update with social services and we have our home and community based services and licensing and disability services divisions with us today Quinn Holly and Jessica good morning morning Mr
commissioners as you said uh I am here with Holly and Jessica today to give you our annual departmental update um I will be very brief again similar to last week uh we're going to start with the licensing and disability services division which is Jessica Mickelson's
division um again just to kind of that we'll be talking about uh regarding social services today you can see it's the uh blue and green column there we're going to be starting with Jessica's so with that I'll kick to you thank you Quinn good morning Mr chair and commissioners as Quinn said my name is
Jessica Mickelson i'm the supervisor for the licensing and disability services division over at social services uh so this morning I will start with our licensing updates for 2024 uh so first off I'm going to speak to our adult family foster care
licensing availability so for family adult foster care we have one full-time licenser Fran Davenport um so currently we have 58 family adult foster care licensed homes in Klay County with a
total capacity of 108 beds um of those 108 beds we currently have 17 openings and we are in process of licensing two new family adult foster care homes um nine AFC licenses were closed in 2024 uh
six were voluntarily closed two were revoked and one moved out of county uh and then we had five new AFC homes open in 2024 and each of those homes was for a specific service recipient uh so next I will speak to our
corporate foster care bed availability um so for our corporate foster care homes we have three licensers supporting that program area so Fran Davenport again and then Julie Clear and Karen Helm carry a small um corporate foster
care um case load um so in Klay County we have a total of 121 um adult and child corporate foster care homes uh with a total bed capacity of 325 um of those
325 311 are for adults so we have a very small capacity for child corporate foster care beds in Klay County social or in Klay County um and then just kind of moving on um so here's some changes
that we have uh recently been kind of undergoing and this pertains specifically to family adult foster care um so under the direction of DHS in 2023 we started implementing some changes with how new beds were licensed in Klay
County um so used to as soon as we'd receive an application or an inquiry we would move forward with the licensing process however what we realized uh pretty quickly was that kind of created uh a
bloating of the number of AFC beds that we had in Klay County which really kind of led to um us not being able to necessarily kind of control the flow of who's coming into Klay County um as you can see here um we're the 16th largest
county in the state but we have the fourth most family adult foster care homes um so in 2023 and we really honed this in last year in 2024 uh we started focusing more on the capacity needs of Klay County residents and the
individuals we serve through the program areas that Holly's unit Kristen's unit um our public health programs um specifically just focusing on Klay County residents um so this allows our licenser to
better providers and match service recipient needs with provider capabilities um it also assisted us with reducing compliance issues that led to the many revocations that we've rece or that we've seen in um family adult
foster care over the past few years um and as you can see um we currently have 124 names on the inquiry weight list so instead of putting people like on a wait list we're just not accepting applications at this time unless if they
have a specific service recipient identified as you can see from the number of family adult foster care beds that we currently have in Klay County we still have bed availability so it's not like we're not meeting um we're just not inflating this pool of
providers so it allows us to better vet and ensure that our providers are better equipped um have the necessary education and background and training to provide the service and really do a much better job than than what we've seen in previous years so um and if we were to
just open this up like I said we'd have 124 additional homes and there's not necessarily that need so they'd be sitting there empty you know and kind of maybe frustrated with the process so uh that's a little opposite for the rest of
Oh Mr chair oh yes Commissioner Mojo thank you so you talked about the bed capacity being 325 and that it's only um a limited limited for children or limited for adults the 311 for children availability or adult availability so
that 325 the 311 are licensed for adults and 14ate beds in Klay County are licensed for children okay we've seen a significant decline a lot of our corporate providers have been closing their children's beds over the past few
years so in regards to the 124 that are on the wait list are you able to screen those are just for adults that's family adults okay so if you were to come forward or someone were to come forward with a child bed availability that's not necessarily something that would be on a wait list that would be correct
absolutely not okay thank you so we'll talk about children's foster care licensing so it kind of it's a little confusing because corporate can serve adult and children and then when we look at family foster care there's family adult and then family child and so our
family child foster care licensing primarily works with our child protection social workers and those are the placements that they focus on taking so and I guess to my question maybe to make it make sense for someone who this isn't my wheelhouse as much i try but um
in regards to what our our our messaging across the state is I didn't want it to seem like we had a weight list of child availability and I understand it's a whole different component uh sure that we are addressing that as
additional capacity comes forward we're not holding on to it thank you yes definitely uh so to speak to the child foster care licensing world uh we have two full-time staff that work in that program area gail Burnside uh works with
our non-relative um providers alex Eshog works with our relative providers um so currently in Klay County we have 42 child foster care homes licensed 32 of those 42 are non-relative homes
and then 10 are relative homes we have 17 non relative providers in the currently and then nine non-relative applications and process so uh this is
down a total of five from last year um and that was we had one family who adopted the child another um was due to a reunification uh those were both relative providers um and then we had a
couple of our non-relative providers decide to longer be a foster care provider and then one moved out of county who is still providing foster care in another part of the state so and then in addition to Gail and Alex's
duties um as licensers um Gail also assists child protection staff with all of their placements so anytime a child is going to be placed into one of our licensed homes in Klay County Gailitating that placement to ensure
it's an appropriate placement the foster parents are equipped to meet the child's needs and just make sure that so that we're supporting the foster parents and ensuring a successful placement um and then G Alex um assists with our county
adoption so they have pretty pretty big uh roles within the county jessica can I ask you a question on the um application so So we currently have 32 on the nonre related yep and there's another 17 that
are applying to become is that okay uh and then so it looks like the relative we could almost double that if they were all went through the pipeline so how long does that process take on that application you know it
varies greatly um and actually in May I believe it's going to be at the May 6th board meeting we have um Gail Julie and Karen coming to meet with all of you um it's foster parent appreciation month and then also childc care awareness or
childcare provider awareness month so our plan is to bring proclamations to the board on May 6th and then Quinn and I have also asked kind of provide a more indepth overview of what the licensing process looks like because when you look
at this I mean for our relative homes almost half are in application and so they're going to come and just provide a real detailed like overview so that you guys can have a thorough understanding of why sometimes it does take so long um
what are some of the barriers what we as a county do to try to eliminate as many barriers as possible so so they'll be coming on May 6 so just one question though is background checks one of them you know what we've seen a lot of improvements thanks to assistance from
this board with the background check process um we do have a fingerprinting location up and running in Klay County there's also a location over in Fargo that our applicants can go to so we're not seeing that as the issue that it was
a few years ago okay so it's really just the time it takes gail is going to bring her orientation manual which is this thick uh you know and just kind of go through really what it takes to become licensed so you know it's a great
experience for people you know they learn a ton uh but there expectations put on these licensed providers so ensuring that they're well equipped before they are actually licensed to take vulnerable children into their care
is kind of our goal we want to make sure that they can provide the best possible support to these kids that they can the one thing that I'll add with the relative license homes is as long as the relative is in the licensing process we can place children with the relatives one of the things from the child protection standpoint is if we find
relatives say 8 hours after the children are removed from the home we will do a home safety check first we'll physically go to that relative's home we'll look at the physical conditions of the home run preliminary background checks of what's publicly available to us
and works and it's safe enough we'll immediately place the children there and then begin the licensing process we don't want that the the barrier of the time that you're referencing to stop from that relative actually providing care for their family members
immediately good good point thank you all right next we'll move on to family child care so we have two staff in this program area Karen Helm and Julie Clear uh so currently we have 127 family child
care homes licensed in Klay County we have 14 applications in process um so this is down six from last year so we were at 133 uh that's due to we had a retirement a provider decided to have a
change in her career uh we had another provider who's working towards opening a center so that will increase capacity in the long run um and then we did have one revocation for family child care uh last year as well and then as I mentioned
Julian Karen also carry a small um corporate foster care case load so so some of our recruitment efforts this is just an ongoing area i think we talk about recruitment at every staff meeting that we have for licensing uh we're
always seeking opportunities so you as the board if you events that you think it would be appropriate for our staff to be at please share that with Quinn or myself um uh one of the primary things we do is we create all of our own marketing material uh so that we
have handouts and things that we can distribute at the um and um we do get quite a bit of support from Mandy Olsen over at GIS uh with creating those materials so we appreciate her assistance there um we also uh through
support from the board a few years ago are still we still have us some of that ARPA funds available we were awarded $87,000 and I think we've still got around $30,000 left um so we're still utilizing um
those and incentives um to promote program growth um and those incentives are for both family child care and corporate foster care uh one of the biggest things that we're doing with that is we're offering a referral bonus um so if a current licensed provider
refers another person to go through the application process and once that person gets um their license we do offer a $250 reward to the provider who referred them uh we created some promotional videos this year for family child care um and
then we offer free trainings twice a year to all of our licensed providers in Klay County and we actually just had one this past Saturday so Jessica um the one of the things I've heard about is what's going on is the rule making process is
there some discussion about changing rules of inh home child care and uh and it sound like some of those things could be quite cumbersome for some of our providers what is there what's the
latest on that well um there's always changes i think that family child care is a very hot button issue um they have a lot of advocates themselves as through their provider groups um so they do a lot of um policy and um advocacy at the
state level um so DHS is trying to streamline and modernize um the licensing areas um another difference with this is both fost child foster care and family child
care are going to be moving out of the realm of DHS and under the Department of Children Youth and Families so there will be some changes coming with that all of our statutes and everything are going to be moving um from one rule to a new one um but yes I mean there's with
family child care there's changes every year um they did release kind of a first draft um there was a lot of uh providers who opposed um some of the language i think that DHS does a pretty
good job interacting and seeking input from our providers and our licensers throughout the state um so we were all given opportunities to attend um meetings with DHS here are kind of some of the reasons for some of the changes
and then provide um maybe um other opportunities to try to meet in the middle with the providers so there was another um potential language issued a few weeks ago um I think that's being met with a little bit less opposition um
okay you know you you know I think there's there's some issues even getting down to you know if you have a inh home child care facility how how you have to what you have to do for your playground and
equipment and all those types of things and those things are changing or or proposed changes to those things and and a lot of times those changes come with expenses and you know you know when we're trying to you know you've just mentioned you have 30,000 left in your
ARPA funds and we we're trying to find ways to get get more um you know child care provider inhome child care providers and the the more um I you know I certain of we want to make sure that
it you know it's safe but um it's at some point do we do we govern ourselves or we're not going to have anybody wanting to do it it's a good question Mr commissioner
yeah Commissioner Koff uh just with that new department do you know enough about it yet will they create what what was the main reason for them doing that number one and do you see some new efficiencies that may help bren do you
want to address that i don't know that it was due to creating efficiencies um when they split DHS into DCYF they tried to figure out which departments would go where with DCYF they're trying to keep ma mainly all things related to children in one
department so the licensing component of that moved just due to the nature of the fact that they provide service to kids and oversight to children's program our adult foster care will stay with DHS so now we'll be working under and next week you'll see that a lot of these changes happen in our financial services too
where adult programs will stay at at DHS but yet child financial programs went to DCYF so again I think it's from the state level it's that's how they had to organize it i think at the county level we're all a little concerned as to then it's two departments kind of having
their voice in what used to be one right and it makes two separate pots of money for utilization i believe they just took the money that was allocated to DHS for those programs and it just went to DCYF I believe yeah i think a lot of it is
yet to be seen commissioner Kenhoff and exactly how that's all going to work out yeah i just really became more aware of it just over the summer and I'm just always wondering why you know I think part of the reasons for it was DHS was just getting so big you know they had so
many programs that they were administering so I think wanting to focus you know have Minnesota have a focus on our children and youth and families and so this made sense to try to shrink the program so a lot of the staff that we worked with through
licensing at DHS are moving over to DCYF so we feel like those relationships you know at the state level will continue um you know we've always had a very good working relationship with DHS that'll continue but we know there will
be hiccups and some extra work that it'll take for us to make this move well it's refreshing to hear you feel they listen to the voices out there in the state yes licensing is very um at the state level they are play a very active role
in what we do at the county level so all right next slide please so I will move on to my disability services updates um so within disability services I kind of have three different program areas um so the first one I'll
talk about is our adult and disability intake um so we have two staff who provide intake um services for the three adult program areas at social services um so we provide intake for behavioral
health so Kirsten Leard's unit um Holly's unit and then obviously my unit um so this requires the these staff to have vast understanding of county services um so anything from in choices civil commitments substance use
disorders mark reports uh waiver programs CFSs and um and just kind of to give an overview of what we're seeing Quinn's got it kind of graphed out there for you um we did have a little bit from last year so in
2023 we had 1,233 intakes and in 2024 we had 1,21 so two less from the previous year uh and then we have Bria Krauss uh she
replaced Miriam Danielson this past um winter um so Bria has done a great job stepping into uh that role and she's really catching on quickly so we appreciate her and then Kylie is provides backup intake when um it's busy
or you know if Bria's got meetings or is going to be away from the office at all so all right uh the other realm within disability services is special needs basic care or SMBC um so we provide care
coordination to ukare enrollies through a contract that we share with public health um so we have two staff uh public health has three staff that share this contract with us um and just to give a background so care coordination is
provided to all special needs basic care members to assist them with accessing and navigating the health care system and support services um so this program area again has seen significant changes you can see that huge spike in um our uh
members or case loads from 2022 to 2023 and that just has to do with a change in how UKARE assigned members to their delegates as well as the fact that now UKare is the only health plan providing SMB so there used to be um health
partners also used to be an um contract did not go through the RFP process through DHS and so um UK care everybody fell under that and our numbers skyrocketed so um we did end up
hiring a new staff in 2024 um Amber Carroll um she was working with us in a variable hour um position but she would move to full-time to support this um increase in case load so um in 2024 we
averaged 486 members so and just in reference to three years prior it was 112 so we've seen very significant growth in that area so and then my last area is men choices um so in social
service and a half initial assessors um and then public initial assessors um and we do that so that we're able to offer a multidisciplinary approach to our assessments whether someone's having psychosocial areas or more health
rellated we're able to align based off the person's needs um and then we have three reassessors um so initial assessments are completed for people county seeking to see what services they may be eligible for they may be pro
referred by a community agency their medical provider schools um I mean we get referrals from pretty much any um entity that you can think then the reassessments is done once someone has
been found eligible for a program area and then they need to have an annual reassessment to maintain their eligibility for the program but uh and that gives an example of kind of what men choices is and what what we use it for um in 2023 we launched a new version
of men choices um so that was fully implemented in April of 2024 uh that came with quite a few hiccups um the software was not fully functionable um so for almost a year we were having to
do a lot of handmade corrections um rerun eligibility kind of map things out on paper because the tool was determining eligibility inappropriately but um that has now been corrected so and then yes
question for you the total reassessments do you reassess everybody every year or is it Yes everyone who is open to a disability waiver um has to have an assessment every year if they're receiving rule 185 case management they
have the option to wave it but for everyone open to CAC CAT uh the DD waiver Holly will talk a little bit more about the specific waivers but um they have to have an annual reassessment and so you can see that our growth in that
area has been very significant over the past three years so we did add a new reassessor position who's starting this year mr mr chair Commissioner Bear if you remember when we brought the request to the board for the new re uh
reassessor position that was one of the things that we did reference was there was some legislation um to be able to wave that annual reassessment for the folks that receive these services that legislation did not go through so it is every year i think the legislation would
have been every three years yes yeah instead there is legislation currently being discussed to make it a abbreviated assessment um but still requiring that everyone have the annual assessment but that's still yet to be seen and either
way whether it's the full assessment or an abbreviated assessment I don't I don't see it being a huge timesaver for my staff but how how long does it take to assess um an initial assessment's between six to
eight hours um and you know the face-toface time with the person is maybe three to four of that time but writing their care plan gathering medical records you know processing the paperwork if we have to refer them for a sm if they're not certified disabled
working with our financial unit to make sure that they're on the correct type of MA um if they are going to go on a certain program they have to be on a certain type of MA um you know working with the families working with their providers um so six to eight hours is
kind of an average um for reassessments um you know this past year when everything was going into a brand new system those were probably taking about that same amount of time but now that everybody is in min choices revision we're expecting to be able to do those a
little bit quicker because we were having to do data entry on every person you know entering their name addresses phone numbers contacts medical providers diagnosis you know so now that's done um so these should you know be able to take
a little bit less i'd say two to three hours for a reassessment maybe four depending on the complexities of the person and one more question on that more on the reassessment side they need to come to you you go to them or do you
do it virtually you know what the intent of the assessment is that we evaluate the person in their home so that we can see what their needs are um there are circumstances where that's not realistic they may have a dog
that's super aggressive and they don't allow people in their home or if they're a heavy smoker um you know things like that so we try to accommodate um those circumstances but typically they are completed in the person's home thank
you mhm uh and then just my last little plug I wanted to give was on CFSS and this is really kind of a program area that falls um under both social services and public health but um Susie and I and Holly kind of talked
about some of the issues we've had with this and I just wanted to more or less bring it to the board's attention um so community first services and supports was launched in October of 2024 to replace PCA uh PCA is probably the
largest um state plan service um you know that we associate with through um the programs that we approve um so let's see um of the 946 PCA
agencies that were enrolled to provide PCA only 320 are eligible to provide CFSS so there was a lot of confusion when this program launched at the provider level as far as what they needed to do to become licensed to
provide CFSS so DHS is still in the process of um making that happen um 50,000 motans receive PCA yet there are only 18 consultation services providers um available to assist them with
transitioning to CFSS so one of the other areas with CFSS is it added this new layer of consultation services um so it's a requirement whereas this had never been in the picture with PCA um
but it is for CFSS and so all 50,000 people need to meet with one of these 18 agencies to get their CFSS services started so um so there's a significant lack of providers for both people
providing the direct care i mean there 600 less agencies than what there were for um PCA to provide direct care and then again just this kind of stalemate where we're at with this new requirement of consultation services um and then
just for example of what we're seeing within Klay County we've approved 70 people for CFSS since it launched and only 24 so about a third of them have been able to work with a consultation services provider and this is going back to October 1st so we are seeing
significant delays with getting people access to the services that they need to remain living in their homes so and this was written a few weeks ago uhly to prep it for board so the numbers have increased a little bit um but it's still kind of dire but so I just wanted
to bring that to your attention because I'm sure you guys are hearing about it at other meetings and whatnot that you attend so so what happens to them in the meantime they don't go without services so unless if they were a current PCA
recipient they can get six months 6 to 12 months of transition PCA this is specifically for new people so any those are 70 new people that we've assessed and only onethird of them have been able to get a hold of and work with a
consultation services provider so they just wait and they go without the service well not because it bothers me um so are these services a local entity or were they um
we do not have any local consultation services providers um I'd say the majority of them are probably in the cities but they're really scattered throughout the state we just happen right here in Klay County they are looking for new consultation
services providers are obviously so there's nothing stopping an agency but you can't be a PCA agency and a consultation services provider and provide the care to the person there has to be kind of a delegation of role but
thank you obviously a little frustrating for to have implementation from the state level without the necessary infrastructure to uphold it just imagine that uh with that we'll move on to Holly's division uh I will kick it over to Holly
Wner go ahead take it over good morning commissioners like a supervisor home and community based disability services um over at social services um so just to start us off I have um 16 amazing staff in my unit 14 of which are case managers
and two are case aids um so just kind of um transitioning from Jessica's min choices assessment um when her staff complete an initial min choices assessment and they're determined eligible for a disability um services or disability program they're assigned a
case manager in my unit um and so that case manager would begin to um identify services and supports to address the needs identified in the person's been choices assessment um and then they'll work with the person on making referrals coordinating
services um getting those things set up in the person's support plan and monitoring that support plan for the next year um after about a year the person has an annual men choices recess reassessment like Jessica had mentioned we start that process over where um the
men choices reassessment determines eligibility for disability programs if the person continues to be keep working with the case manager and we align um services with the person's needs so again we my case managers their
focus is on person- centered planning making referrals coordinating services advocacy and then um that support plan that they write with the person they're monitoring the services that are in that support plan um in addition to our
disability waiverss we do have um our rule 185 developmental disability case management which I'll get into a little bit further or a little bit later in the slides um and then just to note we did add two case managers um the fall or
November of 2022 and then January of 2023 i do have two case aids in my unit um they really kind of are the backbone to our unit doing all of those administrative tasks tasks related to our waiver programs row 185 they also
provide some support to um Jessica's min choices assessments um her assessors and reassessors as well as some SMBC um care coordinators um so the majority of um the program areas my staff uh work on is our
disability waiver programs um And this is um our Medicaid funded servicesable for a disability waiver a person has to be a Minnesota resident um be on Medicaid um have a disability and
be certified disabled um then have a need for um uh services as an alternative to an institution um as well as each waiver has um their own individual requirement for level of care um and our focus of our disability
waivers is you know to fund services to help the person live as independently as possible in the community while promoting health independence and um community integration so it's really an alternative to an institutional placement like a nursing home hospital
or intermediate care facility for people with developmental disabilities we have four disability waiver types um the first one is our brain injury waiver um this is um a waiver for people diagnosed with a brain
injury who would require um the level of care provided in like a specialized nursing facility or neurobbehavioral hospital um in 2024 we had five consumers on this waiver and the previous year the the number in parenthesis is the number of people we
served pre in the 2023 year so no change in that program area um our next disability waiver is um community alternative care which is CAC um this is the waiver that serves our um most medically fragile or chronically ill
individuals requiring that hospital level of care um so we work closely with our public health on administering this waiver program and in fact our public health nurses are the lead case managers in this program area where um my social
workers and social services provide that secondary support so a lot of times um these folks are living in their home and have um may have 24-hour nursing support um because of their medical needs the third waiver is our community access
for disability inclusion our our caddy waiver and this is our by far our biggest waiver um program area this is for people um with disabilities who would require that level of support provided in a nursing home and so in 2024 um we served 567 individuals um and
the year prior that was just um a few more with 571 and our last disability waiver program is um or developmental disability waiver this is for individuals diagnosed with a developmental disability or related
condition requiring the level of um support provided in an intermediate care facility for people with developmental disabilities um and so again 216 consumers last year and 204 the year before so those are our Medicaid waiver
programs in addition to that u my staff do provide rule 185 developmental disability case management um and this is a countyf funded case management service for people with a developmental disability or related condition um in
2024 we had 130 consumers and the year prior it was 140 um under this program area there's a few other options the person may be receiving um one is the family support grant um this is a statewide cash grant for people under
the age of 25 to purchase disability related services and supports um the other option is sills our semi-independent living skills um we have 27 people utilizing this program this is a combination of state and county funded um services for people 18
and older with a developmental disability or related condition and needing that support to live successfully in the community so this is where they may have staff coming in the home helping them maybe with budgeting maintaining their house getting to appointments and so
forth and then um the other um subset of services is our county funded DT&H and we have four consumers in this program area um it's for um people who are 18 or older with a developmental disability or related condition and um just need that
assistance to develop and maintain life skills to fully participate in the community and then lastly um the other service area that we provide in my unit is relocation service coordination um for people under the age of 65 and I
have one staff who primarily works in this area with the goal being um it's Medicaid funded case management um to assist eligible um moving from an institution back into the community or their own home so a lot of times we'll
see people who are living in or who are in a nursing home and want to relocate back into the community in their own home or maybe a foster home and need services and support set up before they can leave the nursing home so we have one case manager who focuses on that area
yes Commissioner if I did my math right you have about 925 consumers of all these and are those 14 case managers working with those 925 yes yes um okay so this graph shows just kind of
the trends with our average um case load sizes so starting in 2022 we had an average of just about 59 um and then that's gradually increased over the last couple years with um sorry I got to look
at my a little closer 24 and 25 um right now looking like our case are staying relatively the same so again just to point out um in the fall of 2022 we added a case manager and then January of 2023 we added um another one so
that's where the 14 case managers um come from um our you know case loads continue to um the people that were serving on these case loads um contend continue to have kind of intense um complex needs um as Jessica spoke about
the launch of CFSS that is also added some additional tasks and work workload to my case managers with that process um and then um we are seeing this last year this was a a policy that's always been in place but was waved for a few years
due to the COVID rules um but case managers need to work with the person to have services authorized within 60 days of starting a Medicaid waiver program so um that really becomes um that intensive work upfront with connecting with the
person helping them identify services and then finding a service provider who has staff available to work with them which a lot of times can be one of our biggest barriers is to find um local providers that have staff just given the the workforce issues and that can take
on that referral so sometimes those services are delayed um beyond 60 days because of those factors um but they certainly do their best to to get things implemented as soon as they can um let's see so in 2024 April of 2024 we launched um fully launched um
our revision um and as Jessica spoke that's the that's the tool that um men choices assessments as well as our support plans are completed or completed in um and so we've um are at 100% with
utilizing that tool um as with new tools um sometimes they're not always fully equipped for um our work and there were some delays and additional kind of workload issues just working through the bugs of that that online
tool um in November of 2024 this is exciting news for us we were awarded a lead agency um capacity building grant from DHS um with the focusing employment opportunities for people with disabilities and increasing
that competitive employment um the state of first um state which is requiring um all disability case managers to approach people who are of working age with the idea that they if they're interested
they can work um competitively in the community so we are in the beginning phases of um that grant working on an action plan to increase our employment supports um with the end goal of increasing people who are working in our
community and then um just kind of um I wanted to put this on the board's radar starting July 1st of 2025 we will have um a new policy to follow for people on our disability waiver program areas who are looking at um residential services
so starting July 1st um people who are interested in living in a corporate foster home or customized living setting will need to meet certain criteria um before they can access these services and case managers will need to work with um that individual to ensure that
they've explored all other lease restrictive options and have informed choice before um um authorizing the residential services if that person is eligible for that program so um so that's an overview of of Holly's
division as well um Holly doesn't know this but I'm going to put her on the spot a little bit uh Holly was awarded uh a statewide exemplary leadership award at this year's MSSA conference her staff uh came to me a while ago and asked if they would me and or asked me
if I would support them nominating her for the regional award which of course uh we did and she won they did it at the state level too and she won that as well um so she had no in there i swapped it out last minute um but I just I wanted to bring that to
your attention of Holly's absolutely amazing uh leadership ability her staff have absolutely nothing but wonderful things to say about her uh and I concur as well um it's really great to see that um kind of all your hard work and effort was recognized and honored at the statewide level so congratulations
congratulations thank you and with that uh I would yield to any questions that any of you have okay commissioner Mojo thank you uh thanks for the helpful to uh all of us so that we can understand really the scope of the work that your departments do so uh
congratulations on um leading such an amazing team we're really really proud of you uh I'm just going to maybe talk a little bit about uh state budgets and implications not only the state but the federal changes on a lot of things and
um I know that's a really tricky time when you're working with uh constituents and folks that you serve so uh just know that uh we're with you in the frustrations just trying to make sense of it but also part of a larger um scope of conversation at the state level i
know particularly yesterday both the Senate and House released their uh supplemental budget proposals there's a lot in there that got worse uh for counties in regards to what the governor's cost shifts were and now what we're anticipating what uh the House and
Senate are anticipating so um any way you can continue to help us share that story uh is really helpful um just as we mitigate that issue so thank you okay anything else
all right thank you so much thank you all right next we have our committee reports we'll start with um Commissioner Bear your mic up last Tuesday after county board we had a county EDC EDA quarterly discussion
where we had we discussed about city and county projects in the area we had representations from Holly Barnesville and Morehead there did we have one from Dworth not at that one
yeah and we had great discussion there on that then on Thursday we had springs cities and county meeting where we had updates from Dworth Glendon and Holly about what was happening in their cities and we also
had staff there to give updates to them about what's going on in the county i'd like to have a special thanks to Jackie for helping putting that on it was a great communication and a great great meeting then on Friday myself and
Commissioner Campbell and administrator Larson met with Manomomen County officials the the administrator Starky Commissioner Shronborn and Commissioner Darko we discuss discussed the White Earth Nation buying 288 acres of land
just east of 336 and we also had discussion about having a casino in your community and how it is working with the tribe we had good discussion then yesterday I was part of the citizens advisory committee at the
wild rice watershed district where we elected new officers we elected a new chairman Paul Harless from Hendrum and vice chair Kim Severson from Yulan we also discussed the watershed adding four more members to the advisory committee
and we passed a motion for the wild rice wershed board to discuss their strategy on long-term land ownership in the district right now the wershed owns about 400 450 odd acres of land that does not have a project tied to it and that we
are wondering if we should be owning that land or selling that land so we pushed a that motion on to the board to discuss that then last night I went to the city
of Felton with and represented the west central water district with Stephanie Mr slick and let me bring that up here in my
email where we discussed the West Central Water District memorandum of inclusion with Felton this would be a document where each city in the district would sign to if they want to be part of it or not part of it and Felton agreed after we
left i got confirmation today that Felton agreed to become part of the district they just needed to put down how many get actually a final number on millions of gallons they use before they sign that and then we also went to them and asked them for
aou on their grant money and they agreed to sign on and give that money to Norman County as long as we get them a new map on how that first pipeline would be run and the
first phase of that water district would be utilized and they are on the first phase that granted for $1.75 million so we did that last night and that is all I have to report mr chair just maybe a follow up on that or
further explanation so the city of Felton had received a $1.5 million federal grant uh to do upgrades to their water system for transmission line transmission yeah so um then they they
just decided that being part of of uh the West Central would be its best option in fulfilling that so um that's good to hear that they've a agreed to that so the other
one was uh what other community was it that got the 1.5 norman County as a whole oh Norman County okay okay yeah yeah all right commissioner Airbringer thank you uh short week excuse me short week last week um I also on Tuesday
attended the county EDC EDA quarterly discussion uh we did have a good uh review of what Jackie has accomplished on our uh uh Klay County website which we're working to make it more accessible to people who are looking for
opportunities in our county um had a good update on what uh the small smaller towns in our community are doing right now towards their uh goals
and u overall just look towards the for future working with this group and that concludes my report thank you Commissioner Kraboff thank you Mr chair um so last uh Tuesday
I too attended the um EDC that's been talked about i appreciate Jackie's work and others uh building upon that uh website to focus on those city uh projects and um
developments uh Thursday um I had my children's mental health uh LAC group um meeting we had uh about 16 in attendance um very good discussions uh one of the things that uh was
um uh interesting for me as well as all the others we met uh in regard to the family resource center uh we had uh we met our two hires that are now employees of uh CAP LP and they'll be the uh
navigators of the outreach and uh the connection hub for uh people in in the work that goes along with the resource center and they uh gave us about a 20 minute presentation it was might nice to
meet them they're um seem very talented and and for being brand new about three weeks into the job they seem to have a large amount of knowledge already so it's uh impressive and uh build upon
that um we also um spend time uh in our development of the LAC report to the board that'll be coming in May and uh as a group so that was a big part of it and then also just our agency reports um uh
that are just where that interaction goes with uh the people involved on the committee between the providers so each knows what is each is doing uh later um that morning uh I had a part
of the PRTF uh um I commissioner Mojo um Steve Larson the administrator and a couple others involved in our small group um met with Henipin uh rep staff from Henipin County and uh main topic
and I'll let um Commissioner Mojo speak a little deeper on this but really about re uh reimbursement rates and then um u the fact how much uh Henman County uh has people up here at our West Central Juvenile Center so and they come here
because of the therapies we offer so feather in our cap and good work uh to all uh uh late and then that evening or that late afternoon excuse me would have been uh the meeting with uh rural cities and counties again it was nice hearing
the updates from uh the cities and also our departments thanks to all of them that spoke friday uh we did have a follow-up uh small follow-up group follow-up meeting to the PRTF discussion discussing what we had uh heard with
with um Henipin uh again Commissioner Mojo will be um getting set to testify back in um St paul tomorrow she can give more detail on that and then Monday um yesterday uh
I was with adult mental health that LAC again helping with the development of the LAC report that we're going to also hear here be presented here in May uh and then uh last night I was part of the
M planning commission uh really just u uh one conditional use permit down in the M industrial park for uh operator towing impound lot and then also the uh the city is
still zoning map amendments is related to commercial properties and they just told us about uh some of the changes mainly in the gateway making them more uh flexible and uh not having
um allowing smaller setbacks more mixed use rather than just being plain commercial so giving more latitude to business owners and other types of development um that's my report you commissioner Mojo
thank you Mr chair last week after board I attended the highway tracking committee meeting we did have a discussion on uh Buffalo Red River Wershed District uh discussions that are happening with the diversion authority and how we communicate plans moving forward particularly uh to the residents
that might be affected by any delay imposed from the DA we discussed the U motor grader advertisement uh staffing that summer work student workers have been hired we do have an opening still with that maintenance worker position
and it was exciting to hear that we've had a handful of employees utilize the CDL training program that this board implemented i attended the Klay County EDC EDA coordination discussion thanks Jackie for the presentation on the
website i really think that would be will be a great tool for our residents and businesses as they seek out opportunity within our cities and Klay County i attended the West Central Henipin County uh uh West Central Regional uh
Juvenile Center Henipin County Klay County meeting i just want to say that for the fact um that we were able to uh garner a meeting with Henipin County to discuss the creative work that Klay
County is doing is huge and um they uh propose several different things all of which Klay County is already vetted through quite well uh it is uh true that we serve 7 to 10 kids from Ramsey and Henipin County daily at our facility
because of the innovative treatment that we offer the um intensive programming there's a weight list there of about seven currently i think that's really helpful as we discuss uh statewide initiatives uh but also rem reminding
our residents that as we serve other communities that brings in a level of revenue too so um talked about how we can um move forward with the changing landscape with those needs i also attended the spring rural Klay County
Cities meeting a really um great organization from Sarah and Jackie on that and also our staff that attended uh it's always really important for cities to be able to go directly to departments when they have questions and so I appreciate having all of the
representation there a really great dialogue on mutual ways we uh work together to serve our residents friday I attended a meeting with the Chamber of Commerce the city of Morehead representatives about funding concerns
for our capital investment bill in regards to flood mitigation i think it's really important that uh Morehead Klay County and the Buffalo Red are um actively raising up the total funds for projects that we've brought forward uh
forward to the basin uh you know I know that there's a conversation in North Dakota about Minnesota not paying Minnesota not paying their fair share uh we've secured well over hund00 million for work in our area and so making sure
that we are able to articulate that correctly bring that uh number forward and um go from there i think uh Commissioner Campbell is well aware of this but uh between 2004 and 2018 the Buffalo Red brought in $34 million in
state funding to work through the Oakport mitigation uh land owners up there have contributed uh uh well over $1.4 4 million to the ongoing expenses there and so as you sit around those diversion uh board meeting uh tables
we'll get the numbers from Klay County and and the Buffalo Red for you to be able to have that as well so talked about uh the capital investment piece we have testified at the state on that um the deadline last Friday doesn't necessarily affect capital investment
deadlines we'll continue to work forward with that uh number going forward then we did meet Friday also on the PRTF uh juvenile non-secured juvenile bill really great that we have another hearing on that tomorrow I'll head down
to St paul tomorrow to have more uh discussions on that but yesterday I'm happy to report that our PRTF bill did make it into the first round of the HHS omnimous bill proposal uh we just need to work really hard to get it there uh
Commissioner or uh Representative Keeler uh was pretty loud in regards to making sure there's a rural representation with that so uh great work to all of you as you've continued to lift that with our colleagues across the state on that and then um I think that concludes my
reports except to say that my son's first choice for a college tour was a state university it just happened to be the one in the south bunniesville my report yeah thank you Commissioner Mojo all
right i uh I also attended on um April 1st the highway tracking committee meeting commissioner Mojo did go through that um I know on the motor graders um there we Dave did mention that
there's three local entities the city of Morehead the city of Dworth and the city of Glendon that are interested in in our used motor graders and I think you know um he's been working Justin's been working through Lori and
and Brian to make sure that we follow the proper procedures i think there's some stipulations in law that allow us to um you know provide those that equipment to other government
agencies at least that's the way Justin explained it to us so um more to come on that um he did have three new student workers hired for the summer and as commissioner some staff uh members that
had utilized the CDL policy which is really good um then I also attended the uh EDC EDA meeting on that same day
um and I you know I the the website thing is really big and I know Jackie is really working hard on that and I I know I just happened to talk briefly with Steve and I I I really think that we
need to there's an awful lot of additional leg work that was talked about on on how we can provide pieces of information to put on um that economic development link or
website and the fact that we're we have these local universities available to us that could assist in that and I know maybe Steve you can comment on I think you talked with some others on that and reaching out to those uh college
campuses but I really think that they could um provide some additional leg work that Jackie would not have to do um in in that regard and and really be helpful in terms of
um seeking their education degrees as well it can be a real beneficial thing for them uh then the rural cities meeting again we had an awful lot of our county staff was there and gave good reports
um I guess I I I'm a little disappointed that we only had three of our cities at that meeting it would nice to see that have a have a larger attendance but
uh thank you to all of our uh department leaders who were able to be there and and provide information and answer any questions that our local communities may have regarding our services
and that uh I in regards to Commissioner Mojo's discussion on the um amount of money that the state of Minnesota has put in for flood protection you know and she mentioned that there's been over a hundred million dollars I think that's
been put in place she mentioned those numbers and that most of those numbers were for the in town protections within the city of Morhead which are still are qualifying numbers towards the whole project and she mentioned the 32 to $34
million in the Oakport project that happened and I know that well because I worked on it from the very beginning from 2004 on and and and that money is not part of that 100 million that's those those are additional dollars that were put in
place and had had I we moved forward with that project um immediately following the 97 flood we started to work on that but had the state not invested in that when they did
it would have been a requirement to do as part of this this project now so even though the $32 million was previous to the diversion project that $32 million would have been an
additional ask that we would have had to do uh to make sure that that that area met the 37 foot flood protection area so so in essence that the state has invested not only theund I think the I
think I've heard Mayor Carlson say that that number is upwards towards 150 and 125 million um and then you can add on that 32 to 34 so Commissioner Yeah and it's a it's relevant to that that those
were prices 20 years ago or or 15 years ago right and if we those costs were rolled forward now they'd be considerably more but it was paid for promptly which is the issue we have now is these projects need to be paid for
before it runs up higher all right that concludes my report steve thank you Mr chair last week I participated in the highway tracking meeting which has been well covered uh also that day participating in the EDC
EDA uh we are going to be having a meeting with Karen Lowour and and Derek Le Point uh this week to further look at the relationships with the schools uh so to to build off uh your commissioner Campbell's comments uh so we're appreciative of uh the connections that
we were able to make during that uh during that meeting uh that afternoon I had a department head evaluation uh on the second met with Derek Le Point on some of the different issues that we talked about uh throughout our meeting on the third I participated in the
meeting uh with Henipin County that's been well covered and also participated in the rural cities and county meeting uh on the fourth met with the representatives from Manomomen appreciative of them uh coming to town and willing willingness to to meet with
us i participated in the call with representative Keeler uh that or representative Keeler on our PRTF non-secured detention discussion uh that's been well covered that afternoon I met with Derek Le Point and Dan Molly uh in regards to issues that are going
on within the county and also within the city of Morehead uh yesterday talked with Mr melton on a series of county issues also met with Darren and Sheriff uh just a few notes if you look at our website uh this week is uh is severe
weather awareness week uh and so each day there's a highlighted highlighted area of how to deal with uh different aspects of severe weather uh also yesterday we did receive notification that the office of cannabis cannabis management uh has finally received
approvals to move forward with their business license licenses and so uh again the state will work through the licensing process and as we talked about last week uh the counties and cities and potentially townships are then be responsible for the registration portion
uh and so those uh again our public health department has uh made their services available to uh for the registration portion uh if not the cities and county or townships will be responsible for that moving forward uh
and uh lastly I know he doesn't look a day over 25 but it's Darren's birthday today so happy birthday that concludes my report Mr chair thank you Brian do you have anything for us okay birthday boy anything for us today
well the nice thing about going last is you've covered everything that I was going to cover so the the few things that wasn't covered was that uh I had a meeting on Wednesday with Anna had talked about several different uh HR items going on had a meeting with Civic
Plus and and Mark Sloan on some of our automation for our forms um on Thursday had a meeting with Kevin Kassenberg Matt Jacisman and Mark Sloan to discuss the repairarian aid which we'll have we're having a meeting right after this one to discuss uh the the buffer committee
meeting uh met with Kimberly on to discuss some issues record uh on recording of properties associated with the diversion proc process that was on Thursday also on Thursday I attended the Henipin County uh meeting to discuss the PRTF and the rural cities county meeting
um Friday met with Jackie and Matt regarding items discussed uh at the EDA kind of doing some uh brainstorming there and uh yesterday continue to review the county code uh in preparation for a meeting on Wednesday with uh Brian
Melton and Mark Sloan where we've been going over the county code to try to update it we've been doing that weekly now and probably have a few more weeks to go but uh slow but sure we're making it that's all I have thank you Jackie
thank you Mr chair um as Steve mentioned it's um severe weather awareness week so on Thursday April 10th we will have a tornado drill at the Klay County buildings at 1:45 p.m good thank you and I I did want to
mention too and I didn't include in my report that I the meeting that I had along with Commissioner Bear and and Administrator Larson with folks from Manomomen County and that was in regards to just discussions regarding
um how you communicate and deal with um uh the wider tribe you know they've had an awful lot of experiences with them and so they wanted to sit down and and talk with us so that was that was that
meeting commissioner Krabanov uh to that note maybe just for the public um I don't know that they are going to be on our agenda on the 15th is that correct uh the Mr chair Commissioner Carbonoff I did receive a correspondence from their
government relations person yesterday that indicated that uh uh they would be available on the 22nd to and I just wanted to say that because it was in the in the paper that it was going to be on the 15th so
all right all right if there is no other business we will be adjourned