okay now we're ready okay head went this way but the tum went that way uh good morning everyone I'd like to call this meeting of the C County Public Health and Human Services Board to order on this Tuesday uh February 18th at 8:30
a.m. or rather it's 8:33 um first item is the approval of the consent agenda which includes our meeting agenda minutes financial report uh 2024 donations report abstracts and bills
resignation uh renewal of uh service through uh norshore Health um uh renewal purchase with uh Greg berer uh renewal of purchase with um
Center for alcohol and um drug treatment is there anything else to add to the agenda are there any items someone would like to pull to discuss from the consent else IID entertain a motion Mr chair I'd like to make a
motion to accept the consent agenda as written thank you commissioner Selvin we have a motion is there support I'll support that go ahead we have a lot of support U uh uh commissioner white thank you and
um uh any further discussion hearing or seeing none all those in in favor I I opposed motion passes unanimously left to do thank you that moves us down to our staff report
and this morning we have um Dan from Carlton County welcome sir and come on up and Alison I don't know if you want to do an introduction or or Dan do you want to introduce yourself or how sure that was the first line on here hi I'm daninsky I'm the supervisor of child
support with Carlton County we've been doing the child support work with Cook County since I believe 2014 prior to that we were also helping train some of the staff that you did have have here um 2012 2013 around that time good morning good morning morning
so I'm going to jump right into it if that's if that's okay then um I want to give you fair warning I talk really fast so at any point please stop me say slow down say hey I've got a question about that um definitely I'm here for as long as you want me so I will answer all the
questions at the end to if you have uh if you have questions um so just for some data and again I believe this was in the packet that you received already um so if I'm if I'm reiterating something you've already seen I apologize um uh in fiscal year
2024 the state of Minnesota collected $517 million and served 198,000 children um obviously Cook County is just a very small portion of that but an important one um we're measured annually on a hand handful of performance metrics
um bless you I'm going to touch on the three that we are that that get focused on the most um and the first one I'm unbelievably proud of this one so I'm starting with the this is the star on the top of of everything that we do is our collections on current measure so what that is is every dollar we're
charging a non-custodial parent this is how many of those dollars we collect right it's just a it's a numerator denominator um metric and we are at 81.3 6% so for every $100 we charge we get $813 collected it's a
7.97% increase since 2020 so about 8% in The Last 5 Years and 165% increase since 2015 the year after we took over so we are now ranked fourth out of the 87 counties in the entire state in this metric so we are doing really really great work um but I can't take all the
credit for it so I don't understand I said this last time I was here I don't understand all of the economic the socioeconomic all of the factors Dem graic factors I don't understand everything with Cook County I don't understand everything in my own County to be to be fair um so some of this is beyond our control if there were new
businesses that opened up if there was a lot of hiring that went on if a lot of pay raises happened here and that helped us with our increases um in collections that was beyond our control but I do want to give my staff the kudos for the things that are within our control right the contacts that we have with clients
the income withholding orders and information that goes out to employers to to make sure that we are collecting the money appropriately um getting right sized orders so if we look at a court order and we see hey this doesn't look right we get them into court um to get
that to get that updated right um so many things change in people's lives you get new jobs you lose jobs you move you get on assistance you get off of assistance um so there's so much that is within our control that I believe we did really really good work on um I I want to say i' put our customer
service in Carlton County up against against anybody in the region um if not the state again I don't know every 87 other counties so maybe they they do some really great work too I'm not putting anybody else down um and not to pick on anybody but there is a county in our region who has a 72-hour call back
policy so imagine calling and needing some information about your finances or your kids I mean because that's what we're dealing with right money and kiddos um and saying hey we'll call you back in three business days I mean I I couldn't imagine that I've got a 17-year-old now but I couldn't imagine you know that when he was a little kid if I needed some information uh we
answer our phones live whenever possible if not we call you back by end of as soon as possible or by end of day I mean if you called that 359 and we close at 4 I can't get you back by by end of day right but within reason we're calling people back immediately we're calling employers back immediately we're getting
Healthcare information you know from um these big Healthcare companies as fast as we can I mean sometimes you're on hold for an hour with them but otherwise we're getting it as fast as we can um to get all this information updated um we had a few changes within the last little over a year not quite a year and
a half um some Personnel changes some people who had moved to new positions and won retirement what I did was what we did sorry was take a good hard look at what made the most sense for what we were doing so every child support agency across the the state can do things so
it's a state-run county administered program right so every County can do things the way they they want to do things so we specialize we have people who know very specific things you know maybe I'm the person who goes to court and I establish court orders and I modify court orders and I know the ins and outs of the law and and going to
court maybe I'm that person or maybe I'm the person who again I I take the phone calls every day I work with the employers every day and I work with the healthcare companies every day right I know the ins and outs of what that's going to look like um we changed that up just a little bit with within the last year or so um by putting aces in their
places it's a it's a term I stole from a electronic document management system that we worked with but we did the aces in their places model where if I knew hey if you're better on the phones we're going to put you on the phones if you're better in court we're going to put you in court right put you where it makes sense to put you um and I want to use
one example of of something that went really well with that so we have an interstate case load and so that means um it's only about I think it's 15 cases um up here in Cook County so it's it's not a lot but um but it is it is it is a group of cases and what those are are
cases where let's say you know parents had a kiddo here in Minnesota but then a non-custodial parent moved over to Wisconsin where at asking Wisconsin hey can you collect this support from us cuz he's working you know wherever he's working down in Wisconsin Dallas or something like that can you collect that money for us they collect it they send
it you know from state to state to us um and vice versa you know they have a parent who says hey um you know or they have a case sorry where one of the parents moved over here and is working at loton or something and they say hey can you collect that money for us um through that employer you know the ins and outs of it and then send it over to
us so with putting aces in their places we changed two staff to have them do the interstate work um so they can work you know primarily just on on that um set of set of cases they increased collections almost 10% this last year and that alone so I think what we're doing it's going
to take longer than just a year to see you know all the you know metrics and how they shake out but just in one year just with a couple of people changing what they were doing we saw some really good um results um so that was that's the shiny star that's the that's a really good one
um paternity establishment um now this is the one we have trouble with this measure up here we're at 90.4 one% the state wants us at 90 or above we're 0 41% above so we're barely above um and this one is harder to explain because it
takes the prior year so 203s every case that we have if we we look at how paternity was established so if Mom and Dad are married and they have a kid paternity is automatically established that is their kid legally already their kid um usually you don't have to go to court unless something you know for some
reason you still want support to be paid or something we don't get credit for those cases because we didn't do anything mom and dad were married and kid was born what we do get credit for us is when we get them to sign recognitions of parentage parentages or ropes um or if we get genetic testing done right we get we swab them um we
send them into a company it says yes Dad is 99.9999% the Dad we bring them into court a judge adjudicates we we we get credit for that because we're doing the work on it um we don't have any cases that we haven't established paternity on where we haven't done the work and we're still
only at 9.41% the reason is we don't have control over what happened two years ago compared to what happened last year so the examples I have are um let's say we did adjudicate or we did get a rope signed in 20123 but that family moved
out of Cook County right that they're somewhere else in the state they moved to another state we don't have an order with them anymore their order closed for some reason God forbid somebody passed away you know there's many reasons why that case doesn't exist anymore the second year and so we can't get credit for it it's a numerator denominator like
conundrum I guess where we have no control over what happened the prior year because those cases may not exist anymore so all that being said we're barely above the threshold we were on a performance Improvement plan last year for this because we were at 89% and they want us at 90 so we changed two cases
and moved up to 90 you know 90 and a half% here now I have a feeling this this is going to kind of undulate there's going to be es and flows to this you know again with the year-over-year numerators and denominators of what we have to deal with so again I just want to assure you that we are doing the work
on all of these cases I'm we are establishing paternity on every case that we can um this kind of connects to to the next measure and something I'm going to explain and it's orders established so not just establishing paternity who's the dad it's making sure that we have a child support order
because we can't collect child support unless there's an order that tells us we're allowed to collect child support so our 87.5% of all of our cases have an order established on them the state wants us at 80% and the reason the state gives us that 20% Grace is because they
understand that there's going to be cases you just can't get an order established on we may not be able to establish paternity on somebody because the mother doesn't know who it is we may not be able to establish an order on somebody because the mother does know who the father is but we can't find the father they're in the wind they're gone there's no address for them they're
they're couch hopping they've moved States they've moved countries we just can't find them so the state realizes there's going to be a group of cases um that you just can't they they sit there they're open there's nothing you can do on them the mother either wants um an order or paternity established or they're
receiving medical assistance in which case we automatically get a referral and we're trying to we're trying to establish an order on that case um we do lead the state in this measure though so that that kind of where is why it goes hand in hand is on every case that we get we are working them appropriately there's just sometimes when our hands
are tied and there's nothing that we can do with those cases um we're also self- audited every year on random cases to ensure accuracy on a whole number of of factors if we've established an order correctly if we're charging correctly if we've got medical
uh charging correctly on it if we're contacting another state correctly whole bunch of different things um Cook County didn't have any cases pulled for the audit this year but Carlton had five cases pulled and we were 100% compliant so I just wanted to give that to you as well to let you know that if a case had been pulled I'm sure that we would be
100% compliant in Cook County as well um there's also some major changes that I'd like to touch on so those are the performance metrics um first and definitely foremost we have iPay online that is coming so this is going to be the first time welcome to the 21st
century child support that we're going to be able to collect payments online so right now people write checks and they send them in or they come into the office and they give you cash or they write you a check and the you know the accounting department writes a check and sends it down to the state and it's a it's an Antiquated system right we we
could pay any other bill that we have almost any other Bill maybe online um my Proctor Public Utilities actually for a long time I couldn't do it online so not everybody can you do it online they just switched to online recently um so it's going to be e check debit and credit cards uh ewallets such as PayPal Apple
pay Google pay venmo Etc um is supposed to go live in early March the um the interim director of Child Support actually was in a meeting with me and she said don't quote me on that though because I'm going to get in trouble if it doesn't go live early March cuz everybody wants this she said we're working on it as hard as as we can um
there will be a small fee if you use an ewallet or a debit or credit card I think it's 2.95% um but if you use an e check it will be free um we have an advancing equity and child support Grant so the Minnesota child support division started working
on a federally funded Grant to uh to examine diversity equity and inclusion within child support and any issues that we may have um they want to identify barriers faced by historically underserved populations they added 15 additional race and ethnicity options to
capture the ways the parents of the program see themselves this will improve the programs ability to make data driven decisions um we don't know at this point what that's going to look like we don't know what the data driven decisions are going to be looked like we're look what they are going to look like we're still in the data Gathering um time period
right now so we are doing our best to update Fields uh you know as good as we can we don't guess on what somebody's ethnicity or race are so again this is what the client tells us or what the client indicates um like in their paperwork or something uh we had another Grant it's called the safe access for victims of
Economic Security so we continued to work on this grant was there a question I'm so sorry I just kept talking I was just needing to support my head that's all okay um making it safer for victims and survivors of domestic abuse to learn
about child support services stay safe while receiving those services and understand the options if they're not safe um if they don't feel safe to receive service Services over 140 people at the Statewide level are now involved in the work of this grant we now have the ability to trust what parents are telling us if they feel unsafe so this
connects directly with an income maintenance um uh system called good cause where somebody can say I have a reason to I have good cause to not have you start child support for me um I know I have medical assistance and statute says that this will create an automatic
referral for child support but I have reason to not um and that usually entails getting you know a copy of an ofp or a harassment order you know corroborating evidence from your neighbor or kiddo or something like that it's really hard to get that information sometimes sometimes that information
doesn't exist not every time there's domestic violence are the police called so there's not always a report you know on the back end of it so this gives us the ability to trust more often um if they want to tell us or put it in writing that they feel unsafe and believe you know because of of whatever
reason it may be we're not going to question it I'm not going to question why you feel unsafe or not or what happened to you or give me the details of what exactly happened I'm going to trust you and I'm going to say okay if you feel unsafe and if I try to go after child support from this other individual harm may come to you then I'm stopping
right here then I the state is allowing us the ability to stop it right there um I saw a report and it was from Texas not Minnesota so I you know there's probably some correlation but I don't want to say our state is exactly the same but it was 30% of individuals who were involved in
child support cases had domestic violence in their past so I don't know what the number is just generally in the public um but 30% is a big number so we can you know potentially assume that three out of every 10 you know um cases may have this and again we will be able
to just trust what the what the custodial parent is telling us um yeah Mr chair um appreciate your presentation a question rela to that point that you just made that if if the
um if the the person that is supposed to be contributing to the child care is seeing the the spouse as the as the cause of the problem as opposed to an agency that is holding them accountable
I mean it's it's a fine line probably separating that but how we try to diffuse those numbers where we have abuse I mean if if that figure is abuse present prior to the claim for child support then it it just means it's one of those
things that contributes to being problematic because there was abuse that was prevalent prior to the Judgment with child abuse if the 30% is related to the fact that that requirement is in place
and so then the abuser sees the spouse as the cause of the problem those are two separate things to understand it uh so um if um a lot of times you'll hear a
leader say uh let let me take the hit on this because I don't want I don't want this to reflect on you I don't want them to see you in this I want them to see me so if the agency understands that then then what we try to do is we try to say this is a requirement based upon a structure that's set up that's healthy
and it'sjust and and so we're trying to take that retaliation against the spouse uh away from that I mean any time you get figures that are significant in that regard it's how do we remedy how do we approach that in a way that's healthy and still doesn't
absolve the individual their responsibility yeah if that makes any sense I think so did you ask me a question in there I'm sorry yeah well the question was uh that in the scenario that you presented is the 30% figure uh
relative to the abuse figures that pre-existing prior to the requirement for complying with you know the the requirement to pay spousal support that was one question the other question is do we see the wisdom in trying to
deflect the onus from the spouse to the agency just trying to comply with what we set up as structure that's healthy for society so yeah I'll try to answer the questions because again this was a study done in Texas so I don't I you know I don't want to take their information and and use it as gospel right here but um I don't believe it was
prior to the creation of the child support order was was the 30% um I believe it was just it was parents involved in child support so I think it could have been something that happened after right so you you brought them into court you ordered non-custodial parent to pay abuse happened afterwards right
so I think it's the understanding that it's it's in response to the Judgment ad hoc prop no ad hoc like there's a Latin term after it therefore because of it it's not that I don't not necessarily it's not because of the thing did the abuse happen but it it could have been
at any stage of it it could have been prior to could have been during could have been after so the the deflecting and the taking the onus on it is in in the Income Maintenance world the good cause that I had explained what that does is it stops everything the non-custodial parent may not even know that this is happening doesn't know that
the mother had come in to talk to us doesn't know or the custodial parent sorry not always a mother that the custodial parent had come in to talk to us that the custodial parent had applied for services um had gotten those Services whatever it may be it kind of it stops it right there and says we have no business involving the other person
whatsoever so there shouldn't even be a reason to need to deflect because the other person has no knowledge of the ongoings that are happening if that answers yeah that that puts it in context to help you know to help understand what are we doing to try to
mitigate issues that become problematic you know but and again so the state is taking this on too so so speaking of state run County administered child sport is a federal program so the federal government gives the state the money to actually decide how they're going to run it the state of Minnesota has decided to have counties run it and
then the state is the one you know I we're very happy that they're the ones who are going out I don't have a grant writer so they're going out and getting these grants to actually then come back and do this work so we're very grateful of the work that they've done to allow us to to do this right I I never wanted to be the one who denied a good cause
because there wasn't enough evidence of the abuse actually happening right now I can just say I trust you I don't need any more evidence than than your word why am I asking you for proof of this why am I asking you to go to your neighbor and say remember that last night when you heard that screaming match and whatever and you saw bruises write something up for me because I have
to go bring that to the government now that felt icky to do that so I feel I feel good about what we have now thank you yeah post Hawk Argo propter Hawk after it therefore because of it took me that'll be our new words or yeah right
if you take anything today take that with you take take the Latin lesson I'm sorry I don't know why I went off on that uh and the last thing I had to was we had had a driver's license suspension pilot pilot impact evaluation report so one of the tools in the tool chest of what child support can do is suspend a
driver's license right so if you're not paying um but you have the ability to you're not working but you have the ability to you're just deciding not to we can suspend your driver's license because almost everybody needs driver's license um people still decide to drive without them so it's not the best tool
but it is a tool there um what they what they determined um and and change statute uh 518 .65 changed there's like 10 different reason so the our system is is was built in 1996 the one that we use it looks like Doss if anybody's familiar with Doss
it's you know you you tab through and you type in what you need to type in you hit enter and the thing does what it what it needs to do right I don't mean to make it sound easy because it's not there's like 500 different screens that we can transmit through and put information in on there but driver's license suspension was automatic so if
you met the criteria that you hadn't been making your payments and it was a long enough period of time the system is just going to automatically suspend your driver's license we interface with DVS DPS it says suspend this this person's driver's license so now the statute changed to say there's a lot of reasons
why people can't be making these payments so we want to look at the people who have an order but have the inability to pay something happened right let's say you just had an injury at work you got Social Security um paperwork pending because of an injury you were incarcerated you just got out
of incarceration you know um order state that we can suspend sometimes they State we can suspend while incarcerated or we bring it in and we suspend it during incarceration but that doesn't immediately mean somebody gets out of jail and has a job the next day right we understand it's going to take you a little while you got to apply for jobs you got to interview you got to get
these jobs um and so it gives us 11 do 11 new reasons why we don't suspend your driver's license so there's coding that we can put in there now that says hey again we've looked at this we've softened a little bit to say it doesn't just automatically happen you don't have a driver's license now you can't even go look for a job um because you don't have
a license Li to go around now it says Hey we've got some reasons why we're not going to suspend your license um there's timelines involved with that right we're going to re-review this in a month or 3 months or six months because of whatever your uh situation is and then we'll we'll look at suspending your license then so there's kind of this overall um
I call it the Kinder and gentler child support that we're looking at um when I first started uh 13 years ago um you know there were there were there's expenses of of birth right so birth of a child there's expenses if medical assistant paid for that that we found out who the father was we would charge
the father half of that well birthing expenses can be tens of thousands of dollars right so immediately you'd have a child support order and have $10,000 in back pay right I mean sometimes people would just say I I'm not I'm never going to pay this why do I even want to go get a job to start paying this um and so we are putting people
behind the aall right away by you know making making it harder um I mean that's just one example of the the Kinder and gentler child support that we are that we're looking at now and what we're trying to do is case loow numbers are dropping across the state they're dropping across the country actually Minnesota is part of a um I don't know
what it's called there's three states that are all working together to try to figure out what the heck is going on and why why our child support numers dropping and there's a whole bunch of different reasons I mean we live in the world now again speaking of electronic payments I could just venmo somebody that money instead of having to get like an outside agency involved to collect a
payment for me to send it appropriately to my to my debit card or to my bank account um you can just say hey Venom me I had to pay for soccer cleats give me 50 bucks you know and that stuff can kind of happen more behind the scenes um all that being said the the Kinder and gentler and softer child support that that Minnesota is trying to create is
supposed to make it easier for families to be involved with it and feel okay with the work that we're doing we're not a cut and dry rigid you know mean child support you know um that maybe it used to be I don't want to say they were mean but you know the the difference that it was you know back in the the 80s and
'90s so um I have I have faith that this is all going to work out eventually but like I said earlier with some of the changes that I just made within my own unit I believe a lot more time is needed to determine if if this is going to work or not you know these things that have just changed within the last year year and a half we don't know if you know
what exactly they're going to do um but I'm excited I guess for the future of child Sport and what that's what that's going to mean yeah you might might want to add smarter into the Kinder gentler because it seems like some of these initiatives are really uh trying to get ahead of causing more problems or just
the nuances in there so yeah they seem to make sense don't they that's that's how I look at it too smarter I like that yeah and at least at least worth a shot right and then as the data comes in you'll be able to adjust and just having that flexibility I think is really important so thank you yeah you bet any
any questions further questions for Dan please Comm gam yeah you you thank you Mr chair Dan you use the phrase the state realizes and uh when you were giving some of your um benchmarks that you had to achieve
um when in the second set that you were speaking of which was the 80 some that uh I think he used the phrase at that at that point that the state realizes and you've had 13 years doing this so if you're in partnership with the state federal whomever you're working with if
you feel that there's a reasonableness in everybody being focused on the objective and that reasonableness plays into it it makes the job less stressful when expectations are set with people that don't have the empathy or the
understanding the context um then you lose the reasonableness and so it's important in relationships Partnerships that are reliant on each other that that state realizes that we realize and that we
work for our objective but we work in a context that allows that discussion so we really understand where we're coming from and that that's key to what we're looking at right now with the governor's
budget is that uh do they realize and um in in contentious uh situations sometimes people don't want to realize they don't want to have the discussion they just want to solve their problems and this is one way of doing it without empathy for
the people and how that their decision affects them so I think we continue to want to encourage and call one another to u to have open discussions that are honest and find ways that address that are that are less painful and when we
find ourselves in financial situations where we're pinched we we can identify with that but we can't put that burden on somebody else and not realize what our decision is doing to them so you've had enough years to know in the
relationship with the agencies that you're working with whether or not you see that reasonableness you know extended and and uh each of us when it comes to budgets have to make decisions based upon priorities and if we are excluded from that list of priorities or
our priorities are minimized it it just puts a lot of wetin on a position in human resources and public health it's it's already weighty because of the emotional nature of what it is so that's where we want to
respectfully I'll say confront these things so that we try to call people to sense of reasonableness and empathy and understanding what happens when we make decisions like that without realizing their Fallout so yeah I am on the uh
child support advisory committee so I represent the eight counties in the Northeast region I couldn't even name all eight right now so don't quote me if it goes over to cooch down to Pine I forget where exactly where it goes um but when I say the state realizes I guess maybe I shouldn't paint the state with such a wide brush but people that
I'm in meetings with you know again our our Commissioner of of I'm sorry our whoever the head of child sport was I can't think of her title right now she moved on to the she's the assistant one of the assistant Commissioners at the dcyf that was created down at the state
so we have an interim um you know chair of Child Support or head of child support right now but I'm in meetings with her every quarter where a lot of this stuff is talked about right so it's I agree it's the it's them realizing I guess that yeah that we need to be reasonable with the the work that we're doing now yeah there's some common sense
to it I believe some smartness I think I believe I mean I'm part of the meeting so I feel like I'm one of the Smart Ones at the table I guess or one of the ones with common sense but I think that that same feeling is is you know going all the way across the state across across child support across the state anyway and again sounds sounds like it's
happening federally I'm not in any of the federal meetings so I don't know that for a fact but it sounds like a lot of states are looking at a lot of these same you know programs or initiatives or grants or whatever you know that we're looking at sure wouldn't you say that the declining numbers in child support is reflective of the demographics I mean
isn't that one significant element of it yeah child births are down just to begin with so yeah if you don't have as many you're not going to can't yeah I don't know what your birth numbers are here I I think many years ago I think I reached out to the hospital and got those numbers like how many child births were actually I don't even know where your
hospital is what is it it's about 40 year 40 a year okay have do you think that's gone down no I'm asking questions for about 10 years okay I haven't gone further back sure but sure okay yeah and again I
don't know do people are a lot of people moving to Cook County are they moving out of Cook County is it kind of a mix of the two you know what are the job this is where I don't again I don't know all of the the demographic factors up here the economic socioeconomic I don't I don't understand everything and I don't think I ever will I just I got to
deal with what whatever it is you know that that comes out in our numbers I we just have to deal with it so as long as you know Latin you'll be okay okay thanks that's all I know don't have to be anything else certainly appreciate you at the at the state advisory um table uh really
appreciate your advocacy and um and just your knowledge of and and years of experience um dealing with these issues and and how we can best address it and particularly Cook Counties too just just the knowledge there so yeah thanks yeah
any other questions for Dan Frank I apologize uh Winker does not like my truck oh I'm sorry no no worries as far as we're concerned I hope there's no worries as far as you're
concerned um okay well thank you Dan for thanks for making the drive and giving a great presentation and doing the great work that you do thanks looking over the lake was beautiful today with the sea smoke and the sunrise coming up so magic it was a nice drive yeah thank you all
have a great day you than you all right that moves us down to our director's report I'll start just by echoing the Gratitude to Dan and the Carlton County child support team for the great work they're doing on behalf of Cook County families we've been really fortunate to have this
partnership now for since yeah about 2013 2014 right around the time both Dan and I started our work with Carlton and Cook Counties respectively so it's been a good arrangement for our families and obviously great things happening in the state in terms of really looking at the
program and ensuring that it's not creating harm when it's supposed to be helping families or it's at least mitigating the harm that can come all right so staff updates included in your agenda materials was an updated
organizational chart reflecting our two current vacancies within the department those Being the adult and Home and Community Based Services Supervisor and Family Services Supervisor on the consent agenda you accepted with regret
the resignation of Al Kingsley after uh just over a year of service with the Department as a children's mental health case manager we're grateful to Al for their work with families and youth uh since they started with us in September of
20123 uh we're very excited to be welcoming Sarah eisenreich later this month as our Mental Health crisis response worker Sarah is our registered nurse with experience in in critical care units in the emergency department
so we'll bring a a a high degree of of experience and professionalism in in crisis situations and we're grateful to have that position filled uh once again as it's um been vacant consistently over the last couple
years we have extended an offer for the children and family services case manager position we've had a hard time connecting with the applicant so may end up needing to repost post that position unfortunately uh grateful for the support of Tammy me who is a licensed
social worker with a temporary social work agency who's providing uh Case Management Services within the Children's Mental Health area uh and finally last week and this week are interviewing for that adult and
home Community Based Services position following Martina Johnson's transition to the Department of Human Services early this month we had a strong slate of applicants and I'm hopeful that we'll have a hiring recommendation before the next Public Health and Human Services board meeting any questions on staff
updates before I move on okay um one of the the big initiatives of the month has been the implementation of our electronic medical record system for Behavioral Health we went live on
February 3rd with credible which is the client record management system for mobile crisis response and our outpatient substance use disorder treatment program so that has been taking up a lot of time um but we're really optimistic about the efficiencies that that will
provide us and our ability to capture Revenue U more consistently and efficiently than we have with our historical uh document management system or electronic medical record rather for uh Wilderness cpatient treatment
programs uh Grace was on the radio recently talking about the uptick in viruses circulating in our community how to keep yourself and your loved ones healthy uh both a respiratory illness and a neuro virus or the stomach virus
have been increasingly prevalent so uh wtip has that posted on the website if you want to give it a listen we are working on finding a site in Grand marray to place a public health or harm reduction vending machine this is one of the outcomes of our multi-year
federal rural communities opioid response grant program to date we've installed harm reduction cabinets both in the courthouse I believe we're in the process of installing them at the community center and the benefit of the the harm reduction or public health vending machines is that they will be
accessible 247 at a at a location that's open to the public um also within prevention our coalition continues to meet on a monthly basis including this afternoon that's a hybrid meeting at Cook County highered and on Zoom the young adult life leaders or
y'all program is successfully engaging four young people in bi-weekly evening trainings on how to be a peer mental health support person we're working with the Community Health Board to create more Communications and education materials
on prolonged power outages and safety as a part of our emergency preparedness work we reviewed the draft of this magnet just last week with our local emergency preparedness committee to get some feedback and we'll hope to be rolling that out later this
spring the food access Council continues to set the foundation for promoting access to Affordable healthy foods this is one of the priorities in our five-year Community Health assessment plan we were awarded a deed or Department of Employment an economic
development Child Care Economic Development Grant the total Grant award is $385,000 uh and as outlined in the request for proposals this grant will be used to increase the number of quality child care providers and to support
economic development through the strengthening of our local Child Care System Allison Could you um bring the mic closer yeah you thank you thank you I don't have much more to say no uh we're paying close attention as
Dan mentioned or as commissioner gamble mentioned to the governor's budget and the impacts that that could have potentially on our uh local delivery of services and local budget um one of the line items that the
proposal is uh proposing to shift to counties is in disability waiver spending so the state is seeing considerable growth in both state and federal dollars that are going out to support individuals with disabilities
primarily in residential settings so based on uh the the draft language in the governor's proposal there's been an effort at AMC and uh at the county level to look at what these
projected shifts how they could impact local budgets so I um with a support of Marissa our disability waiver case manager was able to pull three years or the last two
years and year-to date spending for disability waivers this includes developmental disabilities caddy which is community access for disability inclusion CAC which I'm not going to be able to Rattle off what that acronym is and then brain injury waiver
in the governor's proposal the the shift is 5% of the state portion so as with a lot of our spending as a department in human services there's a a federal portion and a state portion so
what the governor is is proposing is that 5% of that state portion be shifted to counties So based on our our historical and projected spending in that area uh if that 5% would be shifted to the
county we'd be looking at just over $30,000 additional expense for disability waivers and again that's 5% of the state portion um our historical spending in disability waivers is uh right around
$1.5 million and again These funds aren't currently reflected in our budget they're going directly from the state to residential service providers for individuals who are in Cook County or Cook County residents who are placed outside of the county on one of these
disability waivers also within the governor's proposal is uh an increase in the county cost share for the behavioral health fund the behavioral health fund was formerly called the Consolidated
chemical dependency treatment fund and with all of the reforms that went into effect Statewide for substance use disorders over the last few years that has been renamed the behavioral health fund um currently the county cost share
is 23% of all of the behavioral health funds um for County residents are build to the counties what the governor is proposing is that that increase to 50% based on our small numbers we're
projecting uh minimal impact there right around $2,000 if that were to increase from from the current 23% to 50% uh also in the budget proposal is the elimination of the behavioral health
fund administrative Revenue to counties historically that number has varied uh last year it was just about $6,000 so again uh a small impact there based on
our our population other proposals in the governor's budget are harder to uh determine what that impact would be one is the competency restoration this would be a new service level that would be built to counties for residents
who are at a state operated facility and are in a legal process that's determined that they aren't competent to stand trial um when they've committed a crime due to their either mental illness or substance use
so again harder to track what what that impact would be as it's a new service and then um additional cost share would be increasing the share for counties for individuals who are placed in a sex offender treatment either at
Moose Lake or St Peter we don't have anyone in our our County currently who's in treatment at one of those program so are unable to project what that impact would be based on either current or historical spending um Additionally the Cannabis Aid local
cannabis Aid to counties is also in Jeopardy our 2024 allocation was $2,000 just over 2,000 uh again harder to estimate what that impact would be as it's based on a 10% tax on cannabis and low potency
edible sales so would likely increase in 2025 and into the future as uh retail sales become more prevalent so all said and done if those uh cost shifts were to go into effect um if they were applied to the
2025 budget we don't have a 2026 budget to analyze yet so if those were applied to our 2025 budget with the increase in expenditures and the decrease in Revenue the total anticipated impact to the budget would be about $47,000 not insignificant but certainly
not the multiple millions of dollars that some of our other counties in the region are and state are projecting yeah sitting through the um the walk through with DHS um they were talking those percentages and it was pretty scary um
but it's very helpful to get dollars uh with those so thank you for for doing the leg work there and putting it in perspective because yeah it's very alarming sitting through that all the all the shift changes yeah absolutely yes I'm glad you were able to
be a part of that presentation last week commissioner Mills is referring to a walkthrough of the governor's budget with State staff from the Department of Human Services and department of children youth and families um commissioner Mills was attending I believe as a representative
of the advisory Council for the transition from DHS to DCF uh which also included in the agenda materials was a handout summarizing the transition both the timeline of transition from programs to the
Department of Human Services to the Department of Children Youth and families as of January of this year uh embedded within that document are are links to much more information including the department of children youth and
families implementation office website um I think that's all I had that gets us through d as well right that was that gets us through d as well if I shifted things around a little bit there yeah Rand yeah is this the
proposed Governor's budget or it's not in effect yet right it's just proposed people can respond to it and will you know there's going to be a lot of horse trading I think too it's hard to know I don't know I just don't have the experience with the governor's budget to see how things change and
shift and the positioning involved and all that but um yeah it was also I mean it was alarming to hear the percentage uh changes for those those shifts but it was also uh encouraging just hearing from DHS yes we do realize um the
significance of these shifts and and how difficult it can be for counties um and and she was trying to communicate the difficult position the state is in with the budget forecasts um the deficits in in the future too and just trying to
find that best path forward and and she really wanted to emphasize we all are we're all working on this together it's just how can we move forward and and do least harm with with shifts and all that so both frustrating but
also encouraging just to have that communication and and yeah realization on their on their end just that it's not they're not just cut cut cut cuz we can it's more like oh boy we're in a tough spot and what can we do and this is
really important for future Generations even but um but we need to do something um so I'm curious to see where where things go commissioner Campbell yeah thank you Mr chair thank you Allison
um it the number numbers help I think for we'll call it public consumption that uh it would be interesting to know these programs their start date and then how we track that from a financial
standpoint so when these programs started if they were started because there were Grant funds that came either on a state or federal level to begin these programs and then how these programs have fluctuated over time so that we see the amount that we're
investing that is a portion of our levies so to speak and how much is paid that comes from these programs that were funded and if we see that there's funding that's being withdrawn or
questioned then the impact we would see based upon the numbers we have so you in effect gave us those numbers but if we were to track them from a graph standpoint from their Inception within reason it would visually give us an idea
that would in you know be informative the other thing I think when we see the association of Minnesota counties going into testifying and individuals from different counties testifying on on this that if we had something that visually
showed that you know its impact uh to the Count's overall with these programs you can't ignore what what you're seeing and you can speak to it you know verbally and have a lot of Statistics but sometimes it just it doesn't get
assimilated like something that's visual when you look at and just say here's a program started here it was funded here and then funds got dropped off and it's like you have enthusiasm and whatever but you need to be in it for the long term with the intention that seated the
money in the first place and then stay with it and if you see how it's affecting us then you see how much of the burden is falling on the levy and how much is you know being partnered with with whether state or federal funds but
um yeah there's enough to do anyway but if if the figures could just go into a graph form in in that regard I think it'd be easier for the community to understand it it would give us some ammunition so to speak when we you
know go to legislators we're just one County and we know within Home Services or out of home placement costs one or two families and whoa the budget just goes crazy so uh we have to deal with
that reality but it'd be helpful so I appreciate the work that went in into the figures as you represented those in dollars but if we could see it over the long term we'd see what are those dollars getting us for their investment and how much are we investing as opposed to other agencies
so thank you for your question commissioner and there is a a resource that's publicly available through the State Department of Human Services and it's the county cost report and I can commit before our next meeting to pull some uh information together from the cost
report illustrate how that has changed over time the the downfall there is that it's not up to date I believe the most recent year available is 2020 but we would at least be able to see over you know a 10-year period how has that incre how has the the County's share of paying
for these service has changed over time yeah the other the other thing is if we look at where those projected cuts are if you have an increase in an area of need that we're seeing that is burgeoning and yet we're reducing cost
that doesn't seem to connect with you know just common sense it's like we've got a need here that is growing so we should we should uh contribute more to try to reduce you know the Fallout of a problem
that's getting bigger so if you take money away from it and you see it growing it just doesn't seem to from a common sense standpoint doesn't make sense the other thing which we can't appreciate unless we get really involved in it is U where the
prioritization what's driving it when it comes to what we do with the dollars we do have and in our discussion that we had with Dan here it's it's this re reasonableness and the the fact that uh we're saying that these various entities
realize and and our our challenge is to make sure that the the individuals do realize respectfully you do realize the nature of the problem which is growing is now's not the time to pull back but what are the priorities that are causing
you to do that so that's basically money you know that's where the the pressure is coming from you know is nope we can't spend more money so we have to do some trimming that's which makes sense but and that's that's what responsibility is fiscal responsibility is making
difficult decisions but in the community in our sense and in the state in the broader you know context when we shift dollars what's the rationale behind it and if it makes sense and say we don't like it but it makes sense but if it is
if it's driven by ideology or politics or who you know or whatever else then people have a reason to say it doesn't make sense you just scratch your head yeah so we understand it's it's basically dollars yeah I think you know in our packet to see the monies that have come from organizations the
donations and things like that that demonstrates people that are willing to come along and help yeah and I that that's to be applauded when you see that partnership so yeah we have a strong community on that front for sure okay uh well thank you any other
Frank I'm sorry is yeah um and I would just like to give a big kudos for that $385,000 child care Grant I know that just didn't magically appear in your inbox I'm sure a lot of work went into that uh and congratulations to you and your
staff for putting that together um I did have a couple questions on it U is that a one-year Grant or a multi-year grant or it's a one-year grant that is based on the state fiscal year so it will extend over two County calendar budget
years okay uh and um it's earmarked for increasing the number of child care slots um and and what what was your strategy in that is it training new child care workers or establishing new facilities or or weage supplements or
what was the um what was your plan for take turning that from money to slots yes so it is a multipronged strategy uh that will provide ongoing support to some of the existing programs as a part of the
child care pilot professional development wage enhancement substitute pool um I'm just pulling up my notes from Nancy and all credit to Nancy who is our our grant writer and spearheads all of our child care initiatives locally I'm just referencing my notes
here to see uh what is new in this new Grant as I know there are a few new initiatives um so something that is included in that grant program is additional partnership with housing developers Nancy's working with a local
housing developer who's interested in setting aside a unit perhaps in the development for child care uh increased engagement with the hospitality industry including non-traditional hours of care drop in diff these programs have
different licensing rules but there are some providers within the region that Nancy is engaged with to learn more from that she met through one of the panels that she's been asked to participate in again ongoing funds for startup expansion professional development of
existing child care providers potential child care providers that mentorship program uh so our current Grant ends on June 30th and the new Grant will run through the calendar year and into next year also funded by the grant is
expansion of the North Stars the Cook County North Stars website with additional Pages featuring local child care providers um social media engagement and looking at the the success of the
Aging well resources hub for that was spearheaded by the Aging coalition to develop our child care uh website similarly so more resource information for families and providers thank you thanks for the
question and thank you to Nancy again for for leading that Grant to writing and delivery of services for child care providers any other questions for Allison I just have one more update
which is to to tea up our items for board action the the contract addendums with satth mountain Clinic uh just a note on why I didn't put these on the consent agenda as I did with all of the other contract renewals as there were a few changes this year uh notably the
follow along program which historically was its own subcontract was incorporated within perinatal nursing supports funds were shifted from the outreach program to Wick or women infants and childrens due to historical and projected spending increases in that
program and Grace is here as well uh if there are any specific questions on those grants she did a great deal of work with Sawtooth Clinic their staff uh and our fiscal team on developing budgets and subcontracts for the new year that are in in alignment with what
we're seeing in terms of programmatic shifts any questions there for Grace or Alison all right well that brings us right down to that item for board action the uh renewal of the contract uh with the addendums uh for sat tooth Mountain
Clinic um feel free to ask questions or i' entertain a motion um if we're ready for that I'll make the motion to approve the renewal of contract agendum with Sawtooth Mountain Clint thank you
commissioner white we have a motion is there support support thank you commissioner Selvin we have a motion and support uh any further discussion hearing or seeing none all in favor I I
opposed motion passes unanimously thank you that moves us down to committee reports the first one being active living steering committee commissioner um primarily there's discussion uh and
Robbie H was involved with this about an extension of a multi- uh use path continuing up from the lower part of the gunin trail up and around uh and then there was a lot of discussion
about people entering when the Sawtooth Harbor View Apartments are done the safety of trying to get into the highway and a pedestrians crossing crossing the trail and what are we going to do about it and when or do
we just wait till there's a bad thing that happens and it was it was considered at the beginning of the construction but this was determined that we'll wait and see and we'll either
do a bridge or a tunnel Robbie likes a tunnel I don't know I mean this was just a conversation that was just like what do you do so stop PL yeah stop PL yeah be cheaper I think yeah well that'll
more to come there um it's interesting hearing hearing tunnel talk because I don't remember how many years ago they were talking about that too but I think that had to do with the Sawtooth Bluffs um master plan and just how do you
access that safely and all that so interesting that it's happening now with the housing too all right uh next one is Arrowhead Economic Opportunity agency commissioner white uh they do not meet until next week I believe is okay anything from
Arrowhead Health Alliance commissioner white no we didn't meet this week we met last time around and approved the contract excellent uh Arrowhead Regional Corrections commissioner gamble thank you Mr chair we uh last time we met I gave my report
in the previous meeting and we meet this Friday thank you uh child care solution subcommittee commissioner storley thank you we did not meet but I'm very grateful for the $383,000 when we do meet we'll have some good discussions awesome thank
you uh Community Health Board we did meat um one of my favorite um parts of it is always hearing from our medical consultant and this time it was about uh fluide and um just different statistics uh about fluoride around the country and
around the world and just having to do with um concerns uh of fluoride poisoning and um just what how fluoride Works uh with with teeth and bones and and the rest of the body and is pretty interesting um there are a number of
cities who do not put it in um in their water there's also uh a musical about it um so I'm curious about that um uh but there's been extensive
research done on it and just the impacts and and the safety of it so um but it's it's coming to the National Spotlight and um and so I'm sure we'll hear more about that but the long and short of it is I I think it was like 1.5 millgram
or parts per million or something like that um that is generally accepted um toxicity is around four parts per million um so there's quite a quite a sway there there
are wells in the United States um I guess mostly in the south west that have levels beyond that 4% um and then um yeah and then there's slightly
different standards globally whether it's the 1.5 and the 1.7 but Frank do you have any else yeah 1.5 is what usually used in municipalities in the US and you know as commissioner Mill just said that's far below the the level that
we've seen toxicity which is about four to five parts per million um that we have to actually seen Wells that have high levels of and we have a gr with services to free
Tes so anyone curious about their wellat there's a free wellat testing program pick up and they they test for for fluoride do a comprehensive great great I'll just
repeat that for the benefit of anyone listening online Grace was just referencing the the grant funded wellwater testing program that we have in partnership with Land Services which does include a fluoride test and it is also there's not a microphone by Grace there there are
wells in Cook County that have high levels of fluoride that that it's worthwhile testing for so so now it's all in the microphone thank you thank you Grace and yeah thank you Frank um is there anything else you'd like to share from that from that meeting um no okay
except I saw Dr kfal in town a couple days ago oh really they were doing skiing yep oh great yeah I'm I'm a fan um let's see here um Cook County local advisory Council for uh mental health R
okay we um we met and we had a lot of discussion um in particular Rosio was talking about um the adult survey that they did working with youth and talking about
protective factors for children parents support healthy parent parenting work stress high for families and she is working with financial things to get help with that and maybe this grant I don't know if that would affect that but youth
programs and mentoring stopped when we had Co and a lot of it hasn't completely returned again and another issue was just transportation for after school programs for kids in this area which again there used to be a bus now there's
not a bus it's a long way for parents to drive if they're working especially and so that's kind of a an issue that was brought up there is no uh discussion no immediate solution for it but um that's
something that to think about because for a lot of students that's very helpful for them to be able to have after school programs and maybe not be home alone after school too I don't know um we talked about the program for
cannabis use um educating parents a little bit about that and uh Grace and Ros will present to school staff on prevention talking about drug use I think and or yeah was at
school on Thursday during the professional development day servs that she had gathered that she presented to the council last Tuesday okay good and I don't know about
um the resignation of Al now was she working with the schools were they working with the schools yeah El was leading and supporting our youth programming after school and within the
school so we're in in transition right now in terms of you know how to continue the great work and yeah I think that was a very important and helpful program from what I've heard so that's I think that's about what we talked about some of the financial
things that we already talked about here so yeah if I may add Rana a couple things that we're working on is facilitating a future presentation with outfront Minnesota which is a a Statewide organization that uh supports
lgbtq2 plus Youth and the topic that we're looking at having them come in and present on is that intersection of mental health and specific challenges for lgbtqi 2+ Youth and people in
general we're also uh Grace is connected with staff at the Community Health Board regionally to identify a speaker to come in and present on the intersection of Housing and mental health knowing that that's another uh challenge in our
community and uh at a regional level the arrowhead behavioral Health Initiative just came out with A needs assessment based on um research throughout the region so we'll be diving into that at a future meeting as
well thank you good yeah I think schools you know getting the the children started on a healthy path of life is really going to save a lot of money and heartache in the end so I think it whatever we can do is is really important thank you my personal feeling
um all right the next thank you Anna um the next one is the restorative justice committee commissioner gim meet tomorrow thank you first meeting um we have the Council on Aging commissioner white uh they are they they
are interviewing grant writers they had two applicants I don't know what the decision was the executive board will be making that decision thank you uh emergency preparedness committee commissioner Sullivan
certainly um we had an opportunity and I want to thank Allison for um really leading that uh group when we met last time Mike kport was unable to attend and so she stepped in and uh did a great job but we debriefed about the recent power
outage in the city of grand marray um talked about um a mobile generator and um also talked about how Public Health and Human Service were prepared to step in and set up a warming shelter at the community center if need be um talked a
lot about communication around that point and also which Allison uh referred to earlier the magnet project where there's information about what to do in the event of a power outage and that will be coming out this spring we discussed at length the hazard
mitigation plan that the county is working on at this point in time and we had great participation commissioner white was there there as well and we had representatives from the city of grand marray Grand Portage um ISD 166 Soil and
Water the county the DNR um we had uh members from volunteer fire departments and state parks and so really um a broad perspective was given to um looking at our Hazard mitigation plan and basically
we prioritize some of the hazards is it uh more likely we're going to have a mudslide or a fire we did some of that work um we talked about local vulnerability for example the grade um not being open and if we can't use
Highway 61 how is that going to impact us what will we do um and then also looking at um just vulnerabilities in terms of our population the fact that we are an older population and um so do how does that impact our ability to deal with hazards
and emergencies and and then under discussion and there really weren't a lot of answers but the changes in FEMA grant funding and so what at a federal level could impact us here in Cook County and that's kind of remains to be
un um known at this time but um Mike Keyport has put together some good proposals to go to the state to ensure that we have the emergency funding that we need to take care of our population you anything you want to add Allison oh that was a great summary
thank you right let's see here we're on to the healthc care planning committee commissioner storle uh we have not met okay how anything from niik noik yes we are busy busy every week having
discussions on Zoom about what are some of the important features to present at the National Convention I'll just pull a few um there's over 39 different resolutions and then we're winno those down Wednesday and then next week also
um of course housing assistance for homeless and Veterans and families with children and the elderly so that's an ongoing along with mental health from you know young people to the elderly um reasonable Health Care coverage across
the country and reasonable means we don't know because each county has their own um Health Care uh coverage so but maybe in some areas it's not very reasonable to those folks um one of the things that's interesting is that the
food insecurity in rural areas is getting to be uh a big topic among us and not that you're looking at Federal money but more like um recreating something within a community and I know commissioner Mills has been working on
the food uh distribution here in Cook County I think we're we're doing doing you know fairly well with um if we have some extra food sources to drop them off at the grocery stores and so I think we are slowly you know working with that
food in security uh not necessarily having Monies to go toward it but just Community effort and so forth with that um one of the interesting ones that I just pulled only because um it is a
big concern um 9 Commissioners supported uh counties to increase their budget for pole workers evidently there are pole workers who are almost volunteering rather than being paid to come for the election day and for training so um that
Rose to the top as a concern across the country and I we're good here because we did have that increase over the last uh couple of years for election workers so you know maybe they want more I don't know we always want more more but it's
interesting that it's uh going across the country with people who um you know not you feel like it's a commitment and you want to be the election judge and you want to have the training and um well why not volunteer well it takes time and it takes effort and there is
some encouragement for younger people like seniors in high school to be part of that uh effort too which then you know will continue on for the for their future perhaps in the county so we're meeting again tomorrow to um get some of
these resolutions um formed there's a lot transportation and Agriculture and you name it but I'm on the health committee so I kind of stick with that but I support anybody especially in agriculture with this scenario that we have going on right now so that's my
report for that thank you thank you for your advocacy and and efforts there please commissioner um what does a pole worker make in Cook County do you have any idea is it a stien I think it I don't
know seems like I think it's about 16 about 15 I think it might be $16 1516 an hour an hour an hour an hour M yeah so you you uh if you take the training usually two-hour session and then uh you
work you know the primary whatever so you just track that and turn it in just like you do on a regular expense report here but I think it's 16 in an hour we always have quite a team that put their name in and so I think they're very active I know they're very active
here to be a part of the election well thank you um Northeast Minnesota office of job training commissioner gamble haven't haven't met yet I think there was maybe a conflict with the government 101 on the initial meeting but that might have even been
postponed at that time but uh so that's upcoming okay thank you uh no short collaborative um we did meet and um looking at different criteria hopefully getting a system in place um
for our grant selection um just getting a better handle on that there's always a lot of turnover on this board and it's hard to have continuity um and collaboratives around the state have been folding basically and so it's it's good that we still have this one there
are questions about its future um and then um just also discussing about uh what what sorts of uh just that kind of cost analysis bang for the buck number of uh children served versus the cost of
whatever uh request is and and that sort of thing so um good discussion we'll probably have better discussion in April um uh phhs advisory Council Frank thank you yes we met last month
and one of the upshots of the meeting is that I am sitting here because we could the uh member of the Public Health Board is ex aicio the chairman of the public health advisory Council new Services advisory Council and we were not able to elect the new chairman their
person um the bylaws I believe uh Allison what we had determined was that is a requirement that the chairman have a certain tenure uh certain years of experience before starting the
position um and it has been a tradition although uh not written into the bylaws that the vice chairman would serve one year as Vice chairman and then succeed to Chairman which is again a tradition but not part of that we did not have any
person who met the experience requirements and was willing to assume the role of the chairmanship so uh Alison I'm going to tap on you also here um and I believe what uh what we wanted to consider
was um dropping the experience here um which I'm mixed Minds about um but that would be a a change to the bylaws that would have to be approved by the board um
and the I there's no prohibition against a a chairperson serving a second year a second term um I not quite recused myself I'm still
here um even though there was no no election um I because I have uh I overestimated my availability and as a result I have missed several Public Health Board meetings which
I apologize and and feel very badly about um but they were could not be helped um upcoming uh I have some diminution in my responsibilities I'm no longer working at sen for Disease Control I don't know if you heard that but uh yeah the day after inauguration
my contract was terminated among many other people CDC lost like 10% of its Workforce and those were full-time government employees not contract Workforce as I was um so that may improve somewhat over the year but I can't promise because things are
unpredictable um and that is what I wanted to thank the board very much for the opportunity to serve with with you I've learned a lot and hopefully I've contributed a bit um and beyond that I don't know we'll be sitting in this year next
meeting certainly grateful for for what we have you for and your what you bring to this board and and their community so um just appreciate all that you've done and and can do and um very understanding of whatever you need to do in the future
so thank you Comm Campbell yeah and just to follow up a bit on that Frank the discussion looking at it I think we left with the intent that uh we would look and try to visit what informed the decision in the first place as far as the policy on the one-year requirement
and um if we wanted to revisit realizing we'd have to change the bylaws but that we might want to put in language that would indicate that if a person went in uh as Vice chair that uh uh the chair would Mentor that
individual into the role so however we want to do it to build Integrity into it I think you alluded to a group that there's and we're finding some associations are no longer you know existing because of the lack of the
volunteers available and and the Aging of the population uh and so we have to step back and figure out how we're going to do this to to be effective but we want to keep focused on the intention that they informed it in the first place so that we have good continuity and transition
so that's sort of where where we left it fisherman picnic's a great example of it's supported like a lot of people that you know that's that's what you did but where are the people to pick it up moving forward um let's see in the Cook County food
access Council we have not yet met since since the last meeting and it's it's scheduled here um in the near future I don't I don't have my calendar up for that um it's Friday
103 Mission Vision bylaws group on Friday this in the afternoon okay and then the larger group is going to early March okay thank you uh for the good of the order
anything anyone liks to share uh one thing I just wanted to share um it's a little outside this meetings scope um but an opportunity for outdoor recreation which I think is important for physical health and mental health
and uh just quality of life um uh we uh the the regular board meeting um we had passed a uh support for the snowmobile trail to uh allow for ATVs um
contingent on letters of support and it does not appear that those letters of support are uh will be procured um there was some discussion at the state level about having funding to look at this and um my understanding
from the community and the board is there's a lot of concern about unknowns uh regarding impacts of this and so I've reached out um uh to this to the DNR to see if there are ways we can find those those
unknowns out without committing to to going all in which um like I said I think in the community there was concerns of just handing it all over to the state and and not having as much of a local um voice in the process and so way waiting to hear back on that but I
wanted to share that with with the board um just to know that um there are opportunities to make improvements but it's it's important to um you know look into it and and find the the ins and outs and and the impacts there in
so um nothing no outcome to share but just part of the process I guess anyone else well then we're at the end of uh our agenda so I'll call it adjourned
thank [Applause] [Music] you I know the the ATV the is that year round or what is that I'm Sor is that ATVs on Trails is that or
what's the proposal um yeah currently the the CJ ramstead Trail um in K is not allow for ATV use um season so you applied for that and so other counties do included
for the offse it um um order for them to look at it uh we needed to in order for the CJ ramstead board to um look at it needs to
be part of the