Social Services Board - Regular Meeting

It is 04:00. I'll call this meeting to order. We have an agenda before us, and so we've got today's agenda. You had to welcome everybody that's here. You take a moment to look at it, and I would entertain a motion to accept the agenda. Mister chairman? Yes, sir.

It's a brief point of order. I know you have a new board member. Has she

been sworn?

Yes, Very

good. Yes, sir. Thank you.

I will sit here and shut

up, sir. No, sir. Thank you, sir. Keep us in line. Thank you, sir.

So moved on the agenda.

There'll be a second. Second. All in favor,

aye. Aye.

Opposed, same sign. Agenda is accepted. Once again, we do have a new board member, and we'll get to that in just a few minutes. We have two items that's before us, the adoption of the minutes. We did have a quorum on February 19. Those minutes have already been sent out. Unfortunately, on March 19, we did not have a quorum, but we did have discussion meeting that was director Hunt, correct me. Wasn't that budget discussion on the nineteenth? It was. Okay.

Right. So and I'm pretty sure all of those minutes have been sent out also. So hope that all of our current board members minus miss Pellegrini has had a chance to look at that. And if so, I will entertain a motion to adopt the minutes that have been previously sent out for February 19 and March 19.

I didn't see March 19, so I can't

Do we send them up? Okay.

I didn't see them either. But I

wasn't here on the nineteenth.

You wasn't here. You wasn't here. And we couldn't adopt anything or do any action because we did not have

a But

before this meeting, minutes have already been sent out. So we'll take it one at a time. February 19, which we would have, voted on on the March 19, I'll entertain a motion to accept February 19 minutes that have been previously sent out.

I make a motion that we accept February 19 minutes.

There'd be a second on that. Second. All in favor, aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Alright. Is it my understanding, with the board members that we have not had a chance to review March minutes?

Correct. But I also I know I'm that weird person who won't vote on minutes for a meeting where I wasn't present.

We will mister chair. Yes, sir.

It's a point of order.

Yes, sir.

It would be It will still be appropriate even for a board member who was not president immediately. He always it is still appropriate

to vote on it.

And in fact, I would recommend an upper down vote either way.

Yes, thank you, Sir.

I just always feel weird voting to say yes or no to something where I wasn't there. It seems odd and it seems contrary, but it is actually correct to do so. Okay. We the board makes the decision, not the individual.

I will share with the board members that we're not present. Everything was conducted as we've always conducted meetings, discussion. I will tell you this, even though I was here by myself, that was a long meeting because I asked a whole lot of questions. And I was only one here. And so, but those minutes have been sent out to the board members once again. I will entertain a motion to accept the minutes from March 19. So moved. Would there be a second?

Second.

All in favor, aye. Aye. Would there be opposed, same sign?

I will say aye because I trust your judgment. In deference to you and your judgment.

Yes, ma'am. I I've looked over them. They heart, you know, so the minutes past. Are there any public comments? No public comments. Alright. We're at the point of we have a new board member who is miss Sydney Pellegrini. She is the appointee of the county commissioners. Unfortunately, our last county commissioner's appointee, he made it to one meeting, found out that life be laughing so to speak. He wanted to further some stuff in his education and he knew this would take away from his time and his education of what he wanted to do, so he resigned.

Miss Pellegrini had sent her application in back in December, and it came back before the county commissioners, and they voted her in this past meeting. So we welcome her. She was sworn in just a little bit ago before this meeting started. Would you like to share anything about yourself, ma'am?

Sure. I'm a peer support specialist in Cleveland County. I worked in Rutherford County for about two and a half years. I also was a guardian of Alitum. I stepped down to be on this board, but I'll be a guardian of Alitum in Cleveland County soon instead of Rutherford County. I'm an individual who had several involvements with Department of Social Services before ages of 18. So I'm very passionate about DSS. I never thought that I would be on the board for DSS. So I'm very eager to be somebody that has a voice. I'm a huge advocator.

I'm also on the board of directors for NAMI. I chair the young adults so I really enjoy being a young adult and being passionate about that. And I'm in school as well for human services hopefully to become a clinical mental health counselor. So I am in recovery myself. That's what a peer support is. I'm very honored to be here. Yeah. And be the voice for people who was like me.

Welcome. Welcome. You.

Thank you,

ma'am. We're happy to have you. Thank you.

Just to note, coming up in June, our wonderful esteemed vice chair, miss Georgia Steele, unfortunately, will be rotating off, but not today. She's with us for several more meetings. So if there's someone that you know of that might be a good candidate to join the DSS board, please ask them to put their applications in. But we still have miss Steele until that time. We will now turn to director Hunt for the personnel report.

Alright. So I'm going to ask you to go to your booklets and go to the personnel report. It's dated as of 03/3025 and just hold that spot because before we do that, we want to introduce who we have in the moment. And so, Susan.

Hello. I present to you Heather Fletcher. She started with us a week and a half ago on April 7. She's been in the management property management business. Okay. So she's been there a week and a half doing very well. Very nice to have her. Second, we have Stephanie. Hello. She started with us this past Monday. She's been with us for three days

now. She

comes from the insurance banking industry, insurance financial industry.

And can you tell the board the positions that you have now? I'm in Fed and interest.

And I'm in family children's Medicaid. Wonderful.

So thank you. Any questions for our new staff?

Welcome aboard.

Thank you. How has it been for

a week or three days?

It's been good.

Busy busy busy. Lot of goody ideas. For sure.

You ready to get to the meat and potatoes? Yes. Mhmm. Wonderful. Thank you so much. We do this as part of our routine so that the board will know who you

are and you'll get a chance

to see who the board is because they're definitely the foundation of the work that we do. So we're gonna continue on and you have a choice to make. You can stay here and watch what we do or you can decide if you want to go back to the office. You just go ahead and decide whichever you want to do, but it's totally up to you.

It's really okay.

Thank you guys.

Thank you all. Alright.

So the personnel report, I'm gonna ask that the board review the personnel report. It's going to be on we've got the one, two, three, four pages. And just let us know if you have any questions.

Director Hunt, would you give a brief synopsis of the pages that she's looking at so miss Pellegrini will have an understanding?

Thank

you. Absolutely. I will. Thank you so much for for for reminding me of that. And so what the personnel report is is I want you to look at the employee number. Those are the employees who are working with us. And each month we just take a review and we look at the data and we find out who's been working overtime, what is the comp time. It gives us an opportunity to see what's going on, how we can manage that. And of course since you know a little bit about the system, anytime that there's there's social workers working over, there's some things going on. Either the caseloads are high, there's a lot of children out of the county.

So it's very, very important for us to make sure that we are managing that the best that we can. Also, we are responsible to the county and the county budget. And so as director, my job is to manage that budget. So let's just say, we're looking at one. Do you see 4286? They have almost a hundred hours in comp time. Anytime that we get up that high, we're asking questions or talking about it, and we're trying to figure out what's going on. With this particular person. They have children, out of the county, and so they are driving several hours and several hours back. And so sometimes there's you.

We can't say no to the to the comp time at that point. But let's just say that this person was to leave tomorrow, then that hits the budget because you have to pay them out. So everything that you're looking at is really and truly managing the county, managing the budget, and managing the most the best the best resource we have, which are social workers and our workers. So that's that's what that is. And and as you will will look down here, you see administration.

Those are not the that's why you don't see a whole lot there because administration, those are our support staff, our processing assistants. And people like, look behind you. That's Kim. But we do have one that has time. We normally don't have a lot of that.

But this is one person that needed to do some additional things for the agency. So and then what we do is we if you look kind of sort of like middle page, it has current balance, prior balance and the difference. We try to make sure that you can see what it was last time and then what the balance is this time and what the difference is. So if you have any additional questions, you let let us know.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome. The good thing about this one, Sydney, is that is that you see the differences when you see the minuses. That means that we're doing better on the come time. So that's that plus. Also, Sydney, let me have you go to the last page where it has three at the bottom.

It's also important for us to let the board know how many new hires we have, how many resignations and retirees we have, if we have any people transferring within the agencies, if we have to terminate someone, and how many vacant positions that we have. And as you can see, with eyes wide open, a social worker IAT, that's Child Protective Services. Five positions are open there. And we've been kind of talking about this for a while. How difficult it is to find social workers who want to do child protective services and it's it's it's a little difficult because you're knocking on doors and it's it's scary.

It's dangerous. So those positions stay open more and people leave more. Any more questions from? The agency.

Process going good with this. Vacancies in there.

Yes. Going pretty good. We're doing all we can do. So yeah,

we're having challenges with any. Any of those positions getting just getting applications.

We are doing so much better because we actually ventured out. So now we're using indeed. Were not using Indeed before, and it has made a difference, a huge difference. What difference would you say?

Mean All of those five positions are are not it's not five anymore. It's four. It's three. I'm sorry. And then we got one that's starting May 1. I got an interview tomorrow. And then so, hopefully, they'll be getting if everything goes good, so t total difference with Indeed. It is With Indeed. Amazing. Mhmm. And I'm still I'm still having social worker supervisor position up in, but it's it's been good. Yeah. Indeed has been great.

It made the biggest difference. Yes. The applications and the interviews that Tiffany's discussing came through Indeed.

And they've been good applicants.

That's all that she did.

Yes. Mhmm. And yeah. We just we just kinda wondered why we're not using Indeed. Mhmm. And so we put Kayla on it, and so now we're using Indeed. And it is truly working.

It's hard to compete with some of these bigger counties that have bigger tax bases.

Yes. It is.

They can pay higher salaries.

They can pay higher salaries. Yeah. That's we're on the bandwagon for that.

Yeah. We we got one that we thought we weren't gonna get. When we got it, it was like a a huge win. We was like, oh

my god. I was like, yeah. Yeah.

I was like I was like, okay. So we interviewed him. I said, now what's gonna happen once we tell him what the salary is? Mhmm. Because it's 10,000 more in another county. Mhmm. But they chose us because they word-of-mouth

Mhmm. About the department and just felt when they came for an interview that the atmosphere was a good atmosphere.

Yep. Yep.

May I add to that?

Sure, we have a caseworker

who gave her resignation. She worked at chief notice and she went to another county as a caseworker. She worked there until lunch

and she

called her supervisor here and said I hate it here. Can I come back?

Worked till lunch.

She worked the full day, but she called at lunch and it took us until that afternoon to get through from HR to make sure, you know, we didn't

have That's right. We called Deborah, and I was like, Deborah, can you help us? And she just Deborah reversed it just that quickly because we had it done within a day.

The ink had dried on the papers.

Was not right.

It was

not right. And it is it was all because of the environment in our agency and what we strive to keep our environment as. So she really was shocked when

she was. We had a young church member that went to Mecklenburg County when she was teaching at Polk. A woman, It was a rude awakening. Yes. Mhmm.

A rude awakening. Yes.

And the that

The environment is

Mhmm. The very same.

Money doesn't mean anything.

She was gonna make be making more money in the Southern County too. Yeah. And, also, she moved is why she chose to leave, so she moved forty five minutes away from here and we said, well, you know. You're gonna have to make that drive, she said, and she teleworks. So she said I'll drive forty five minutes there and forty five minutes back every day. It don't matter. So

Yep. Sometimes you have to venture outside to understand what's what's good here.

Any other questions or comments on the personnel report? Before we get to the next item, just for the board's information, the March were sent out on 03/21 at 09:24AM. Just for in case you need to go back and you wanna see that.

I can send them again just then.

But the originally came out on March 21 at 09:24AM. We will now look at miss look to miss Price for the budget discussion.

Okay.

For miss Pellegrini, our budget is a complex one. We have a lot of different funding streams that come from federal and state funds. We have four different sections for our budget, Program revenues, administrative revenues, program expenses, and administrative expenses. Your programs of course just what they say they are programs whether that be LEAP, SIP, FNS, all the programs that we do. Administrative of course is your salaries, your power bill, your, you know, that type of thing for all your administrative side.

So as I go through, you'll see I'll say administrative and programs. So it's So we're starting out on the first page. Shows all of our revenues. Second page is part of our revenues. All of the first page and part of the second page are the administrative expenses. So on page two, the highlighted section there shows the contribution from general fund for our administrative expenses. That contribution is the county portion. That's what the county has to fund for our budget. We don't get any any funding, any revenue back from from that portion. So you'll see your contribution from general fund for your administrative expenses is at 64.53% at the end.

We should be at 75% right now. So for administrative expenses we're 10.47 under budget for our administrative side. Then going down all that revenue is your program revenue on page two. Page three is all programs. All those are the revenues that we're expecting. Page four, your contribution from general funds for your programs is at a 104.81%. So we are 29.81% over budget for our for our program side. And then just flip to the very back. Well actually, yeah. Very back page.

Your total budget is at 69.87% which is 5.15% under budget. So we're under budget for our total budget. So we're under at 5%.

When you sit back page flip, I'm lost.

Yeah, page 10. Thank you. Mhmm. Yep, very nice page. And I don't

think I highlighted it but normally I

highlight that last page. But anyway we're at 69.87% which is we should be at seventy five percent nine months ended so we are total budget 5.15% under budget. Going on page five starts your administrative expenses. So going back to page five, all of the highlighted lines are over budget for the current year. In your budget discussion, I'll tell you I have listed why they're over budget and what the details are. All of our lines have been over budget. They were over budget last month. There's no new administrative expenses that are over budget this month. I don't know if you wanna just you can just read through that. If you have any questions for me, you can, you know, ask me.

One some things in our the reason we might be over budget is there's one invoice in that line, and we pay that one invoice in July, so that throws us over budget all year long. There's other things that factor in, like that salaries over time. Well, we didn't budget any overtime salaries in that in that line, but we've had sitting with children that that workers have done and other things that have that we paid overtime for, like our DSNAP, our disaster programs that we had to do. So it's come out of that, but what we'll do is we'll move money out of that regular salaries line to cover that overage. So there's money that we can we can move around to cover overages during the year.

Page six are the rest of the administrative expenses. All those lines were over last month. There's not any new lines that weren't over. And then page seven starts our programs. And so you'll see that food stamps EBT is over 106%.

The reason our budget is over for programs mostly is you look at state foster care, kinship foster care, and 4E foster care. We've already spent 155 percent of our budget on state foster care and 99% of our budget on 4E foster care. So our foster care numbers are really high right now. We have, I don't know how many, a 190 some odd or is that the right number? Foster kids get

One seventy two. Oh. I don't

know why. I I don't know why that number.

So

we're really high in foster care, and that's why it's showing over budget. As far as total budget, we're we're still under, but but our programs are way over. Any questions anybody has? Like I said, there's no lines over this month that were not over last month. All of the same lines were over. On page nine, that disaster emergency rental, miss Roach, our finance director, did a budget amendment. We received additional funds in that emergency rental. We're expecting more funds in that additional 15,000. We we received we've got the 74 initially. We received 50,000, another deposit, and another 23.

We're expecting additional 15. So we're actually even though it shows we're over budget in that line, we've gotten the funds and they do they'll do a budget amendment and put that in. Anybody have any questions for me? Anything that looks like yes.

On this workforce services Mhmm. Why is it so below 9.96? Where are you? Oh. Page seven.

Page seven. Yeah. We just are not having clients come in and request any funding and plus you have to work to get those services. Yeah.

Yeah. The case load for that is really low

right now.

Really? Yeah.

We've got 72 households, I think, in that program, and it's not a program that a lot of people wants to comply with the required plan. You have to work and you might get $236 a month when you have to work twenty hours a week.

So what's their other option? This they have children.

They have to have children in the house under 18. A

lot of people just prefer going to work. Yeah. And not having to deal with bringing this in and this form in and that form in. If all they're gonna get is $236 so they just rather have

a per month.

Mhmm. Less. Yeah. Per month.

And that's for household of two. Yeah. If you if it's only a child getting

the money, it's a $181

a month.

So it helps people who really need it, but there are a lot of people out there that like, well, for having to have this caseworker and then have to submit to my check stubs and the criteria, let me just go to work and not bother with it. So

Even if they don't work or there are other services they get, like the food stamps and Medicaid and all that.

They will still be eligible for that. You don't have to apply for this.

Right. Right.

To be able to get the other programs.

Yeah. So I was thinking some might not just they're not working, but.

Yeah, and then some are going to get more if they just go to work.

The program is designed to. Foster and teach somebody that does not have work experience, maybe generational, who doesn't have work experience that you don't know that you have to show up when you have a job or know how to dress or know how to present. Know, it's the old work first program.

Did a lot of OJT.

When I first started here fourteen years ago, the caseload was about 180 cases, so it's just dwindled down to about 72 now.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Thank you, miss Price. We'll come back to director Hunt for the service report.

Alrighty. And miss Sydney, for you, this is a service report, and you can pull that up a little bit. It's dated for March because because, of course, if we're in April, we're gonna be looking at March numbers. And for this one, we look at February and March, and we compare it to the year prior. These are all of our services.

We have adult services, children's services, child support, Medicaid, transportation, program integrity, economic services, food assistance, Medicaid, WorkFirst, subsidized childcare, crisis intervention, which you're gonna hear people call SIP, LIAT, and disaster assistance. And what we do is we always look at, again, we're always reviewing data. That's what we do because that's how we decide on what we need to do and what's going on and what we need to improve or if we need any extra money from from our budget or from the state or from the the federal government or from the county. So if you will just review those areas and if anything and just kinda compare from last month to this month and then compare to the year prior and let us know if you have any questions.

How does someone make a report from the community on the adult protective services. You just

make an intake call. You just basically call our number and they'll get you to the correct person. Just one phone call. And we have we're 20 fourseven.

I'll ask this question in this and maybe for something else. Had a citizen complaining. They were the one that got called on that they were in the wrong. Is there a process? I know about the intake. Is there a process to let the person that's been accused know the status of the case that's been looked at against him? He said he's not heard anything from DSS.

Okay, you'll have to give me just a little bit more.

So the report was against an adult or parents? Against him. As a parent

or as a caretaker

or As a caretaker. There was a child in his home that he was accused of abusing or whatever.

Mhmm.

He said he went through the whole process, and he's not heard anything about it. And I'll tell you what it is. I told him to call you or email you.

Okay.

And I told him, I says, I'll try to find that answer out for you. Is there do you let the person that's accused know? Okay. This case is closed. I know the person that makes the report gets a letter if they ask for it back. But what about the person that's been accused?

The way that that works is that who whoever that that we call them a perpetrator Okay. Of of of the abuse, They're part of it. They're they're they're part of that. So so they should know when the case is closed because you're having interviews with this person. So so they should know they're part of the process. So there is a case decision letter that goes out to the parties involved.

Is it possible ball got dropped and he didn't get notified?

No. What do you think? I just need to know. I I mean, I need more information after this.

I will have him recontact because he pulled me to the side and asked me, and I'm like, I'll try to find that.

Like, is it open or is it closed?

Or And that's the thing that he was worried about because he's trying to look at a position of employment, and he didn't want this over his head. And I'm like Mhmm. I know what happens if I call the report in. I'd get a letter back by requesting them, but I just wasn't sure about when you're on the other side of the court, right?

Yeah, because he's he's he's part of it. He he would be what they consider the perpetrator of of the case. So yeah, I don't know if I have that email or not, but I I would. Yeah, I'm just asking to call and I'll send it over to Tiffany.

Yeah, I just wouldn't say his name out loud.

Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We wouldn't we wouldn't do that. Would would Richard?

No, ma'am.

Question about the adult protective services again. Would the person making the referral have to give their name? For adult services, no.

You can remain anonymous. You call on the children's services report and you wanna remain anonymous, but your name is on the call ID Right. We have to let you know that

we have to put that down. Right. Okay.

Any other questions about the service report?

So do you have any questions? Mm-mm. Okay.

Not yet.

We we say, I can give you that.

Yeah. It's what we call the an unconscious incompetence. You don't know what you don't know yet. Give you a couple months, and you'll have plenty, I'm sure.

Thank you, dear Rebecca. You. Return to miss Dodd for program updates on the social work.

And me and miss Cindy, we've met and sat down and talked before. Absolutely. So she knows what I do, and she knows what it looks like for children's services as she was in Gardner And Life. And I also do adult services. So I don't have a lot of updates besides, you know, we are getting some good qualified applicants and excited about that. I wanted to remind everybody that we do have the pinwheel ceremony tomorrow at DSS at 02:00. If you could come out and wear your blue and join us in for child abuse prevention month.

Yeah.

And so pretty much that's that's all. We just you know, I've got adult services supervisor, a new in place. That's the one that Lori retired. So, you know, just a lot of learning, training, and

and moving on.

We are taking a lot of kids in custody. We just took five kids on yesterday, so it it is definitely a lot going on right now.

Do you have more foster homes?

Why is the number so low in this county? Is it just no applicants or is the process difficult or not enough people know about the process?

For foster homes? Mhmm. Yes. It's just, you know, They've been recruiting. Yeah. We've we've definitely been recruiting, and we did get a few people to respond to our little QR code. So we have definitely been trying. We have an r pop in the park, which Dee gonna talk about that in her notes. So on May 3. So we definitely wanna try to get people out. No. The process isn't any different than what it'd It's just getting people to do it. I mean, we know it's hard. We know that, you know, you're taking taking a step to take care of kids has been through a lot of trauma and a lot of stuff.

So

Would you think that some of it would be because of drug babies?

More

emotional Mhmm. Problems that kids have?

Well, I mean, it definitely because we're seeing behaviors at a very early age now. Yeah. So it's it's just it's different. And so I know I mean, when I get money to do it, but it don't it's not a lot. It's provided right now. So, I mean, it could be a whole list of things as to why people choose not to foster. We have a lot of grandparents taking care of their kids, so they might not foster because they've already you know, they're taking care of grandparents or raising grandchildren.

And I think COVID gave us a big hit. People just didn't want anybody new in their house because they may be bringing COVID in. So I think we took a hit then. However, it's like anything else. When you have limited resources, you have to get creative.

So that's what we're trying to do. I did bring this up to the board, but Our county has been blessed. With an awesome opportunity. One of four selected to receive a grant from Duke University. To actually study our foster care system as it relates to recruitment.

Retention and foster parents. So we had that meeting on Monday and they will they just sent an email about next steps and what's going to happen is that the researchers from Duke will spend time in our agency. They're going to have They're going to talk with every probably you guys too, but they're going to talk with everyone in the agency, every social worker and every foster parent, and they're going to determine what can we do in our county to get the number of foster homes up. So that's what this grant is all about, and we're very excited about it. It's Rutherford County, Clay County, Jackson County, and Rowan County.

Of those four. So we're very excited about that.

I was like, you all know Emily Wood with Mosaic Hope. So she is now charging

the churches.

She is, you know, calling the churches to let them know that it's their duty, you know, to to do the work. And so she's going to different churches that she's presenting. So she is also working hard in the community for us.

So two years ago, in 2023 we developed R POP, the resource parent outreach program. So Tiffany, take it away. And so what that is is we're

in the community, you know, we are we recognize our current foster parents, and, you know, we have well, that's what the R Pop and the Park will be about is, you know, recognizing them and thanking them for the things that they do as well as kinships and temporary safety providers. And so what we do is we go out and we promote and let them know. You know, we hand out promotional items, let them know what we do, what it looks like to be a foster parent, a resource parent. You know, even if they don't wanna go through the foster piece, you know, at least be in a kinship. So that has been like I said, we've been out in the community. We've got a few hits on it, but, yep, just to recognize them and to do outreach in the community and be present and, you know,

just to make people aware.

And so the extension of that is the OP, the outreach. Empirical research has determined that when foster parents tell other foster parents, they're more likely to do it than when social workers tell foster parents. Because in the whole scheme of things, Sometimes social workers don't do what we're supposed to do. We don't call the resource parents like we're supposed to. We don't follow-up like we're supposed to. And what happens is that when you get that type of feedback that they're telling this person about, like, you

don't you don't want to

be a foster parent there. They they don't call you back. When the child's cutting up, they won't come. That's that that's research. They talked about that on Monday, but I mean, I've I've known that.

And but when you can get other foster parents who are doing well, who can talk about how great it is to be a foster parent. That's what drives more people to want to be foster parents. They can do it better than we can. So that's the extension. That's where the O comes from, is having each foster parent go out into the community, go into the church, their church, and say, hey, I'm Pam Price, and I'm a foster parent, And this is how great it is.

And this is how great Rutherford County is. So that's that's what we're working toward. And, hopefully, we we can make that happen. We're not quite there yet. We're still doing the, you know, the part where we're there. We're out there, but we gotta get it to the point to where we've got other people going out and saying that we can't do this work ourselves. It's too much. We have to get the foster parents doing it for us.

Pardon me.

So can I interrupt you and ask a

question? When

we found out that our workers aren't doing what they're supposed to do.

Yes.

Dragging families on keeping cases in court too long. Yes. That we possibly have some cases that are out of compliance that should have made a decision. How are we fixing those issues?

I'm gonna take put that over to Tiffany because we've had the conversations about. So Tiffany, you wanna answer that?

So we are working on our court processes and it's some things that you know when it's in a court, know the judges have their say in it as well. But you know we're gonna work on we're definitely working on looking at cases that's in the in home phase which is like in home services where it's not kids in foster care. Just saying is are we at a point after two, three months, we need to be staffing cases looking to see if there's any progress. And if there's not any progress, then we need to be moving forward custody. So and then it'll start that foster care part of it. So just to set up our process

Give yourself the credit for we talked about the the court process and that you put on and I know it's in place, but because I saw it. The court process that you put in place that we talked about. Mom's got a blank. Okay. Well, you sent it

to me.

I know.

But I

did can even put the app. See if

check out the back.

So so so we we talked about how we could make sure that cases were not dragging on. Oh, yeah.

Which is basically staffing, making sure that, you know, we are processing cases and getting them closed out when

they need be closed out.

So so now it rather than, okay, come on. It it's, you know, I said, make it structured. Mhmm. Make it structured. This is what happens. These are the players who need to come. This is what time it starts. This is who needs to be there. And always have an agenda. Mhmm. You have an agenda. You you know, you can you can make this process happen and it could be more structured. So, those are some of the thing, the processes that that are in place right now which the other piece of it is we are developing policies. And I know you're doing this. Yeah.

But so we are now developing internal processes which we're calling internal procedures. We've started this. You guys have seen the emails. They all know. That is an effort to make sure that we're making things lean, that we're not carrying things over, that we're going toward policies, and that we're making sure that families are treated with dignity and respect. And that means that we're doing things the way that we should, that we're not dragging things out. It's hard to be part of the system. Nobody wants to be part of the system. But it is necessary. So if we can get people in there and do the work and then close the case, that's what we're supposed to do.

That's why every policy that you will read has a timeline. Even foster care within a year, it has a timeline. It may not always make it, but there should be some good justification. In home services, it has a timeline of six months. CPS assessment has a timeline of forty five days. They all have timelines. Everyone

May I ask you, so with those timelines, are we making sure in the policies and procedures there's something in place that when the workers are not following that timeline, there's some

Yes.

Where you have the director step back up.

Yes.

Because we as you said, if we have a worker leave, we want them to come back. We want Rutherford County DSS to be that golden child, and we don't wanna hear bad stuff about it or folks lose confidence in us in DSS.

Right. What we're doing is and of course, I've had this conversation with Tiffany and and and the managers. We are pushing coaching. Mhmm. Once you notice something, we're not gonna let this drag out anymore. We're gonna coach we're gonna talk about it. It's gonna be a coaching session, and they're gonna walk up right up to Kayla's office, and it's going in their record. And that is happening without a shout of a doubt. Once that coaching session happens and it happens again, there's a write up. Am I correct?

And the write up is going right up to Kayla's office into their into their record. After that, their grounds for termination. We want to treat people right. We want to treat people with with respect. But in all honesty, you're getting paid to do this work for taxpayers money. So we want to make sure that people are doing their jobs and that they're doing it high quality because families deserve that. So we have with, I mean, we're sharpening things up. I saw your hand. Yes, yeah.

In the individual caseloads, what type of models are you using for like pool systems? You know to prioritize and deadlines being met, that kind of thing. What kind of y'all have particular pool system we use?

So basically, I mean we we we definitely follow the policy and mandates and there's some hiccups along the way. Well, you know things do get out of compliance and things like that. We try to make sure we've been in the legal realm of making sure that things are followed as it should be. We are always staffing cases. We are processing cases. Of course, you know, with turnover, you know, it kinda gets it can it can hurt us. So we staff cases. We meet about cases. Cases that's in court, you know, those are things that should be about the judge should be making decisions off of and how we should move forward. And the next thing we should do as long as we're making sure we're presenting all the facts because we

a pool calendar at all.

What do

mean a pool calendar?

Pool calendar.

Way back in the day.

Yeah. You know what those are. Yeah. Because now you need a

house. Know, to what type of things that individual is managing on their day to day basis. We've got pool courts going on. Are they keeping up and pulling cases organized? Because if they don't have some kind of pool system, they're not organized. Some people are organized and some people aren't organized,

right?

We actually we actually talked about that.

Yeah,

so right now a lot of the supervisors are using spreadsheets.

That's great.

And those spreadsheets will show what's due in seven days, what's due in fourteen days, what's due in three months. You are. Technology. Yeah. So, yeah. No calendar,

Dino. So so

so they are.

Yeah. They're low behind.

But we're also holding the supervisors and managers accountable. I mean, you know, because I get held accountable and I'll tell them, you know, I'm gonna get held accountable so you have to be held accountable as well. So, everybody's held accountable because we have work to do and we wanna do this work to where it is within the mission and values of the agency and the county. We're trying

one last question on that. How does private agencies? I mean, how do they do they work with the local county DSS? I know some people are false appearance for private companies. They said they pay more money. So is it? How does do y'all work? I mean, I know you don't work

with them, but how do they

come about? How does it

I'm I'm not sure if I understand your question, but if I understand your question, you're saying can we use private companies as well? Long as as long as there's as long as they are licensed and they're licensed through the state of North Carolina, it has to be licensed through our state. We're we're open.

Okay. If they're licensed through the state, can they get false? They have to come through you in

order to get foster care children? It depends on who they're licensed under, but a person who's licensed can. You can be here in this particular county, but you can actually have a child from another county. Right. Right. Right. Now. I don't know if that makes sense or not, but if you can if you think of it.

I just know some people. They said they work for private agencies.

Mhmm. They're probably the parents. They pay more.

Yeah. So I was just wondering.

We pay whatever the state. Right. The state's allotment is.

Right. I just wondered how they got the false, how they got the children. I know how

the county does. Because there's a lot of private agencies out here that do private foster care because they know that it's it's a much needed service. And and and other counties go through private agencies when Well,

I know. How you would probably get foster care kids, but how do they get them? From the court system?

Mm-mm. We'll send out a blast. We sent when we have kids that come into custody, we'll send out an email and say, hey. We have these children. This is the gift descriptions. And you know what? And go out to agencies. Okay. And they will let us know if they have a placement or not.

Okay. Okay.

And there's other agencies. There's ones that are cost modeled rates that they pay, that they agree just like a doctor's office has rates that you agree with with an insurance company, they agree to accept these rates coming from foster care in the state. There's some of those that agree to take kids for that lower rate. Then there's others that are private that they say no, we're gonna take our chances, we're gonna charge this. We won't agree to the state's rates. So you see what I'm saying? That's called that cost modeled rate basis. They pay that's why they pay more is that private.

I guess there's a big difference in those rates versus the private.

Mhmm. Mhmm. There and sometimes the private companies will take our rate and then they'll pad it with their rate to keep the foster parents going. And I tell you what's happening now across the state is you have some agencies. I mean, they ask, you know, Rutherford County to to do it, but I we we just I just couldn't see it. But you actually pay for a space, and you pay whether that child's in that space or not. But when you do get a child, you've got a space. But ma'am and I could not see

We used to do that years ago and it was just a lot

of money. It was a lot of money and we may need the space, we may not, but you have to pay for it. It's kinda like day care, you know how whether your child's out sick or you go on vacation, you're still spammed with that spot. Yeah. Right. They're doing the same thing now with with the foster care spaces. But that's a lot that's a lot of money. Mhmm. But a lot of counties are doing it. Yeah. We just we we didn't do it.

Other questions, comments, social work? Thank you, miss Dodd. We'll go to Miss Bridges Economic Services.

Miss Duke?

Miss this one?

Miss Bridges.

Miss Bridges. She's gone. She's

gone. See, I'm looking down.

I stand corrected.

We have 29,000

I said it for you, Susan. I can feel you wanted to say it. You were just being polite. So

I think I said it twice.

You did. You did. For the disaster energy assistance, we have $29,826 left in that balance. We are thinking by the end of next week, that money will be gone. Maybe even before then. We have had several deposits into that account. The last deposit was that we had 450,000, 200,000, 100,000 and then one day, bam. We had 85,000 put in there. We didn't even know it was coming. But we have 29,000 monthly now.

We think that balance is gonna be used by the end of next week, probably beforehand. We are waiting on the 15,000 for disaster rental income, but we all have already got apps in place that when that money is deposited into the bank account, we have apps to approve to use up that money so that money is going to be held. There was a. Bill at the North Carolina legislation to ask for 11,000,000 more dollars for the 25 counties that was in the disaster. I spoke to the deputy chief today with Economic Services and she says it goes up and down like a lot of times it'll be.

They think it's gonna go through and then turn right around and it'll be denied. So we she don't know where that's gonna be. She has no idea where we'll be getting more disaster relief money at all. So we're almost out of that. The Medicaid. COVID waivers I spoke about that for the last two board meetings. The Medicaid waivers. From COVID we did get the. Formal written policy that the waivers will expire for cases starting July 1. That means.

They have to cooperate. Parents have to cooperate with child support before they would be able to receive Medicaid. They will start having to prove their income, everything. All the things that we could take their statements for, they are now going to have to start proving. Which mostly is income, their bank statements, how much resources they have.

They will have to prove that before they would be eligible. That that is when their cases starts is July 1, but a lot of these cases we actually started working yesterday, so the work has come on to these caseworkers just effective immediately. Like the cases that we started working yesterday has a start date of July 1 for the redeterminations. So we are starting that process now. I would think about ninety five percent of the caseworkers, I'm just guessing that number, was not in Medicaid, so they don't know the real Medicaid policy. So the whole staff is gonna have to be retrained. Sure. That's how high the turnover is.

Are you the trainer?

No. The supervisors are training. Okay. Yeah. They started that training yesterday with the new policies when the labor's expiring.

That's all I have.

Is that all you have,

miss Epley? Yes, it is all. Any

questions or comments for miss Epley? Once again, we recognize director Hunt for the director's report.

Alright. Don't have a lot on there, only to tell you that, we're excited about May 7 at 04:00PM. This has been a long time coming. This is when we will have the ribbon cutting of the house. The house is actually complete.

We're in the process of furnishing it now. We do have, you know, we're right there at the brink of the budget. Don't have a lot of money left with probably pennies paying paying money. Can kinda sorta see where we are before we get blinds. But we are very close, and we're excited and we need to know if the board's gonna be there with us.

We would love for the board

to be there. This is what it's all about. This is why I got the written citation We're having someone on the office floor sleeping. I won't forget that day, but this is what this is all about. I think, Dogwood Health Trust.

I think, Tiffany and the social workers, for all they've done, for sleeping in the office. I think Susan and David Johnson, who came to our rescue, who opened up their house in Forest City, who allowed us to use that house until this house got built. Because have we? We've had kids that would been in our office on the floor And had it not been for them, they would have been because we can't take them home. We don't have a choice.

But on 05/07/2025 at 4PM, it's official. We can use that. Beds are in there now. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's ready to go. Just want the board to know that the most interesting thing about the house is that it is going to be used for foster parents and their children so that they don't have to go back and visit in the same place where they were removed. I mean, it's just an eerie feeling, you know, to go back to the doctor's office or to, you know, it makes it a house. They get to eat dinner together if they want to. We'll have food there.

They get to play outside. We have a really nice playground that's also part of this that they get to play on. So we're excited. Does anyone Tiffany you want to add

to that? Thank you so much for that

voice. Pam. Susan. It's beautiful.

I tweeted. I haven't done a day.

I haven't seen it at all.

You haven't seen it?

I'm not bumping in. Mm-mm.

Wow. You just wanna be real shocked.

Yeah. Gonna just see the yeah. Final. Yeah.

Kim, you have done a lot for this house and for me to help me manage it. Would you like to say anything?

I just think it's beautiful. That's wonderful for these kids. Me too.

Yeah. We're all excited. I'm trying to get my tears all out before the May 7. But anyway, we're looking forward to it. And that's all I have. No. No. No other. Just just letting everyone know that. The agency is doing well. The the you know, the workers are working hard and. We're doing everything we can to try to keep them motivated and we're holding them accountable, but we're keeping them motivated at the same time. And with that. I yield back to the. Board chair.

You, director. Any announcements to come before the board?

Question, did you connect with Turan to get close?

Yeah, we did. We

took five children yesterday.

Wow. If

I'm not mistaken, miss Kim helped me out. The next meeting was on May 21. I think I'm looking at that as the third Wednesday. Is that correct? Yes.

That is correct.

Okay. I need to let the board know I will not be in attendance on that day. I'm driving school to Dollywood, and I'll be coming back. And by the time I get back, the meeting will be over with.

Have my first and last official meeting.

Tag, you can be it. If there's nothing else to come before the board, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

No. I just want to bounce something up Richard.

Yes ma'am, let's close.

It's a June is her is her last. Is it June that you've come off? Can she still? I think I read it somewhere. I might be wrong, but is she still allowed to be part of the board and to advise someone if she chooses if it hasn't been a double term or has this been a double term for you? It's been a double term. We have. Never mind.

I can answer that. Even if it's been a double term, she's supposed she's able to remain Mhmm. Until her seat is filled. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. That was my question. Thank you.

If no one has been appointed to fill that seat, she serves until

Okay. Wonderful. Thank you.

Well, my my one of my first things that we had to deal with that. And being that this is with the Social Services Commission, so we were at their beckoning.

Oh, yeah. The especially that one. Yes. Okay. Yeah. So Okay. Great.

Please come until you can't come.

So it may not be your Don't go anywhere yet. Yeah. Don't go anywhere don't go anywhere yet, miss Deal.

Sometimes that takes care of months.

Months and months. Years, even years. I just

things slow down. I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

I'll make a motion that we adjourn.

Would there be a second? Second. All in favor, aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. We are adjourned.