Social Services Board - Regular Meeting

The meeting. We're a little late. 04:05 four eight. Meeting's called to order. Can I get an adoption of the agenda? Everyone seeing the agenda, can I get adoption?

So moved.

Second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. Hopefully, everyone's had a chance to read the minutes from our last meeting. So can I get an adoption of the minutes from the last meeting?

Second.

I'll second. K. Any discussion? All in favor?

Aye. Any

public comments? No. Moving right along. Dee, are you gonna give us the personnel report? Director Hunt?

So I'm gonna assist her in this. Okay. So we have the

personnel that there's there's I'm at the conference, and there's no a little bit of noise in the background because they're having workshops. But so Tiffany is going to lead. I I do have my information if I if I need to input something, I will, but go right ahead to me.

Alright. So if before we look over our personnel report, we have some new faces in the room, a lot of new faces that we are excited about. So what we do during this time is we're gonna allow you guys to introduce yourselves and then Susan. So from my side, we'll let you guys introduce yourselves and tell us a little about you and what you're doing at Rutherford

DSS. Go

ahead. Okay.

Can you stand up?

Hey. That's up to you.

I don't know. But well, I'll just sit

here since

you're past.

I'm Amanda Hill, and I started two weeks ago, and I'm gonna be working with the links program. So I'll be working with the youth 14 to 21. And so I've had experience working in hospice as a social worker and then also as residential case manager and just really found a passion for looking at youth. So

Are you from this county?

I am. I'm originally born and raised in Rutherford County. K. Went through school here. Went to Western Carolina for college. I got my social work degree and then moved back here. Went to Cleveland County for a few years. Came back. So I'm back here.

Okay. Welcome. Thank you. My name

is Khalil Wilson, and I will be doing CPS investigations. Mhmm.

A little about your background.

I'm from Cleveland County. I graduated from outstate with the social work degree.

Okay. Well

I'm Jada Fort Mary. I'm with CPS investigations, and I'm so excited to be here. And I have a BSW from Appalachian State, and I am born and raised in Cleveland County and still in Cleveland County.

County. Well, we're excited to have you back. Okay. Would you like to introduce Chelsea? I'm Christy Miller and

I am a She

I She was hired this week. She has some years of service with Cleveland County as adult Medicaid worker too. Very fortunate. Mhmm. She came on. Cassie? I'm Cassie.

Am gonna be working in food and nutrition services. I'm from Rutherford County, but I actually worked at the VA hospital in Asheville before I came here. Yeah. Welcome to all of you. Yeah. Look forward to working with you. Welcome.

Welcome. We're glad to have you guys. And this is the part where you can decide to stay at the board meeting, or you can go back to the office and do your hard days of work with the rest of the day. It's totally up to you.

So As they look at each other.

Like, let them leave first.

Alright.

So if you'll direct your attention to the first minute report and let's see if you have any questions.

None of ones showing open positions. Have they been filled by some of the

people that were here. So Yes.

But

along with that, we've had three new positions that one's retired, one's being hired in services. So that leaves economic services vacant. And we've been interviewing this today, actually, for five positions.

And then one in so two for me right now. And then I have a supervisor position. She's going to a different area of work. So

too bad. Not too bad. They all stay put. Yeah. Any other questions? If not, we'll go to budget discussion

and price. Okay. They won't have your financial report. On page two, this is the first month of the new fiscal year 2526. So on page two, you'll see your contribution from general fund for your administrative expenses is at 10 o 8%, which we should be at 8.33 for one month.

So we're 1.75% over budget. This is, you know, the first month of the new fiscal year, we pay a lot of those invoices up front. So that's what's pushing that, administrative expenses over our budget, you know, for the first month. On page, three, you'll see your contribution from general fund for programs is negative 3.15%. So that is 11.48 under budget. You say why negative, but we received more funds in revenue than we paid out. So we've got some money came back in. One thing is for what we talked about last month is the special children's adoption fund. So that came in. That was over 100,000.

So we've received more funds, you know, that that'll, you know, even out through the year. You know, this is just the first month. So that's why that's a negative. And then on if you turn to the very last page, you'll see your total budget for the year is eight or for the year. For the month is 8.91%, which is point five eight over budget, which it is.

I guess this is the first month and the first of the year. So I won't go through each line that's over. Every one of these lines that we've got listed on our report and every one of the lines you see highlighted are over budget. And, again, most of these are just we pay that one invoice for the year. It's already been paid, so that's why you show an over budget like our work work workers' comp, all of our insurance insurance items that we pay, our dues and subscriptions line. We have to pay our dues up front to the boards. So all those are are over budget, basically, due to one invoice being paid. What about

TANF emergency assistance?

TANF EA. What page are you on? Yeah. TANF EA is on page six. That is anybody that comes in that needs they might have to need help with their rent, other emergency assistance that they might need. And, you know, we're we're finished with our disaster rental money. We don't have any. So there's a good many of the clients that come in that still needing some help with their rent. A lot of those I looked that up, and a lot of those were rent payments. We can pay utility bills for them.

We can do a lot of things that's in, you know, our workforce TANF area. That's a 100% reimbursed as long as we have TANF funds. So if we go a little over, we can pull some money from our WorkFirst and TANF money. That $20,000 that's in WorkFirst, those can kinda just down there that we've not used any yet. We can use some we can pull some of that money up and and, you know, if we are over in our TANF money.

Foster care, you can see again, we start start that over. We're at 12.24% in state foster care and 8.95% in four e, 12.3% in kinship. So we're starting out already within state and kinship. First care a little over budget for the first month. So we'll see how state, you know, how our foster care goes.

Now you get reimbursed for that.

We do get reimbursed. Yes. State foster care is fifty fifty. Four e is about usually comes about 85% reimbursed and 15% county. So kinship is fifty fifty. So, yeah, that's just your total amount you pay. You're not looking right there at your revenue coming in. Your revenue is in your other sections. Yeah. So any other questions?

Just overtime.

Salaries overtime line?

Yeah.

That is where we're paying out of that again. It's people sitting with children. That's coming out of that line. We're coding that to overtime because we really don't want to budget that. So that's basically what that's in there. That's children that we have. We have one at the hospital right now. We're having to sit around the clock for it. We find placement. It's children at the house.

Sit there. Mhmm.

Yep. Yep. So so, yeah, that's that's what that line is. That's the session.

So we already

use what's in that overtime line.

Gotcha. Would you all, at some point, put that in a line item?

I don't know because you really don't know how to budget it because you don't have any kids. And when they'll what we do is we pull that out of regular salaries. We just pull it down. We can we can add another line item that just shows the separate line that shows what is actual overtime and what is, you know, paid for joint. If if if the board wants us to do

that stuff. But you take that out of lap salaries?

Yes. We take that out of lap salaries. Yes.

So we no longer use that for do partners' monies?

Yep. But when the workers are paid the contract workers comes out of partners' money. But when our employees are paid, it comes out of the this Yeah. It comes out of our salary

I mean, yeah.

I've been seeing that. So you still need a lot of employees to volunteer.

Mhmm. Absolutely.

Because you don't have enough workers. We have some contract workers, but we don't have enough to do stay around the clock because if you got people that work either. Mhmm.

Jobs that bit of contract workers, and we blasted out to our contract group. But, again, they work jobs too, full time jobs too, and they can't sit around the clock. And I had a lady to call today that's that's interested in doing some sitting as well. And then Kayla will do all the things with that to get them approved to do that. But, again, it's just getting people to

do it. Yeah. So you don't have a lot of your retired staff that are interested in doing it? No, ma'am. They said, I'm out of here.

Out. Okay. They know what they're doing. I know what

they do. They know. I other questions?

Yeah, any other questions that you have? But David, to answer your question, we can move that out on that line if the board wants if y'all want me to do that

next to see it.

So you can see separate. Okay. I'll talk to Paula.

Okay. Guess we're at service report now. And it's Tiffany Dodd. Yes, ma'am.

So if you all will direct your attention to page nine, Rutherford County DSS reported services. If you will take a look at that and let us know if you have any questions. So

you got a new foster home?

Yes, ma'am. Very good. We are excited about that.

Was that from some of your recruitment efforts?

Yes, ma'am. The walk in advertisement, the majority of our the people that have reached out to us have been the T shirts. Oh. Okay. We didn't get a lot of lot of feedback from the events in the community, but we're still gonna be out But, yep, our T shirts is sending the people over. They do. Interest. Right. So we walk in advertisements.

Yes, we really need that because I see that all the other services for children went up. Yes, ma'am. On '24. Yeah. Mhmm.

Yes, ma'am. We are rocking and rolling.

Yeah. I got CS report in one month, one at twelve. Mhmm. Tell me again the total number of CS reports, but oh, I see now. Screen ins, and I'm thinking screen outs. Screen outs would be because

That we don't accept that don't meet the Criteria. Of use the criteria of abuse neglect or dependency of children. So if they don't meet the criteria, we can't accept it. And it may be that it's a DA or a law enforcement referral. Like, for example, a report with a child on child situation and the parents were supervised appropriately, then that would be a DA. You know, that would be a screen out, and it could be a DA and law enforcement referral.

The child was supervised appropriately.

It could have been that the parents were not aware of what was going on. Okay. So but if you have a situation where somebody might have told the parent and it continued to happen, then we got a DNC report. Okay. But some situations, parents, they don't know.

That's Brother and little brother.

Right. Exactly. So that's an example.

Yep. Mhmm. Do you have any questions, Sydney? I don't. Hope that's Tiffany. I'll ask you again. Mhmm. Social work.

Alright. So just some updates from my side. We I attended SSI with my adult service social work institute last was it last week? Two weeks ago. And it was really, really good. A lot of good information about Was it Social Security? Social Work Institute. You said What's That's I'm sorry. That's what I said. Social Work Institute. Yeah. Yes, ma'am. Okay. It was in Hickory, and it was really good. It's probably the best one I've ever

been

to. Update on a lot of good information, law, policy, things that's coming down the pipelines for adult services and children's services. So it was really, really, really good. A good three days of learning. Adult services, busy, and a lot of things are moving. Like, we see for CPS for children's services, it's starting to move that way for adult services because we're having so many reports with adult services now. And those numbers are going up and up and up. So they are Creating elder abuse? Yes, ma'am. And so they're creating more laws and policies surrounding adult services.

So we, you know, getting more things on that. And they had a review on this week, and they've done very, very, very well with meeting the needs of our adults in Rutherford County. I'm really proud of them. Children's services, we rolled out Path and Seat. And what that is is the new state system that is we are able to go in and see what any county, you know, in the state of North Carolina, which all 100 counties haven't rolled out yet.

But they're hoping to have everybody rolled out by the end of this year. And so we can just go in instead of having to call and ask for information. Can We just go into the system for anything that's in the intake or assessments, and we can just go into the system and see that. In which director Hunt on September 8, she is going to be presenting at the county commissioners meeting, And she's gonna be talking about House Bill six twelve, which also covers Path and See. She sent an email out on July 1 to talk about what this bill is.

And so she is going to talk about, you know, the training that came with Path and C, which was a lot. Everybody in children's services was out of the office for four weeks during the June on through August. And that was hard. So, you know, we had to really rely on our contract workers to come in and man the office because we still mandated to run the office. We can't shut down, but we also mandated to go to a training to learn the system. So so those are some things that she put in the email that she is gonna be talking. And

Does that involve new software?

Yes, ma'am. The Path n c is a whole new software. Yes, ma'am. And it put a lot of truck IT. We probably drove them over. Like, it was a lot that we gotta give big ups to Trip because he was definitely it was a lot. And the system had a lot of hiccups in it, and he was right on it. He was calling the help desk, but it was it was very, very, very frustrating.

That's something the state paid for?

The the system? Yes. Uh-huh. Yes, ma'am. And the

I mean, software and everything.

Yes. But they want us To maintain. To maintain it. And so it was it it and it is still a lot because even me as a program administrator, I couldn't get in the system. And then now I'm in it, and now we got some other workers who can't get in them, but they have to get them because that's the only way they can do the job. So it it has definitely been a lot. So but we gonna keep on rolling. Okay.

You've been busy, busy, busy. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Anything else we need to know?

That's all I

got. That's my question, David. David? No questions? Okay, ma'am. Economic services. There's not a

lot to report for changes for economic services at the moment. We are still watching the One Big Beautiful Beal, waiting on instruction from the state on how that's going to affect the Medicaid cases for Medicaid expansion. We still haven't heard word whether those are going to be continued due to the funding. Or if they are continued, the backlash for our workers for that is the Medicaid expanded would have to be relooked at every six months. So you're looking from doing a research at one year to six months.

So that's doubling the research for that set of population. There is some changes for food and nutrition to the ABOD rules. We still haven't been notified from the DHHS when that will happen for food nutrition services. All of these will affect the public. Could cause some people to be removed from the eligibility. Dee is gonna be presenting to the commissioners on September 8 on the what we know so far about the Medicaid and SNAP benefits too. There's just not a lot of

updates in that. You speak a little bit louder? I'm sorry. Thank you.

That's okay.

There's not a lot that we can say for sure until we get instructions from DHHS and the DHB.

Wanna add anything to that, Dee? I forgot you were there.

No. That's okay. No. You did a great job. Thank you. You too, Tiffany.

That was a short report from you this time. Just wait and see. Right.

That's where we are.

Yeah. That's do you have any idea when

I think the work requirements, the the the charts we were seeing was supposed to be instituted before September 2025, but we still haven't heard anything about that. Able-bodied. Mhmm. For SNAP. Mhmm.

As for the Medicaid changes, I think what I heard last time is they will tell us by September 2026 how it's gonna start affecting the Medicaid population and the work that's going to be involved. It's going to take a long time for them to review all those changes that was wrote in the bill and how it really affects the Medicaid program and the Medicaid population. Okay.

Have questions for Ms. Effley? Director Hunt.

Yes, ma'am.

We're ready for you to give some updates, the director's report.

Okay. Thank you so much and I'm sorry I I cannot be in person but I'm forth working. I wanted to say that even you mentioned the commissioner's meeting County manager Garrison has requested that I update the commissioner's the first meeting in in September. I think it's September 8. I think that's what Tiffany mentioned.

So if if the board is available and they can come or maybe listen online or press is is is it would be so appreciated if if you guys wanted to come while we would make that presentation. Basically, we're presenting on, of course, the impact of the big beautiful bill as it relates to economic services, as well as some of the the new state policy and house bill six twelve. I've sent some of it out, but there have been just a couple of changes in between. So we are right now in the process of developing a PowerPoint with the updated information, and then we'll send it to Hazel prior to the commissioner's meeting. And I I, of course, will send you a copy as well.

So the next thing I wanted to mention is SSI. Russell County did present at SSI. We actually did a presentation on community collaboration, And it ended up being a really, really good workshop, so much to the point too where they called called into the directors association to let them know how much they appreciated our workshop. So we were very happy about that. The next thing is, I think you guys are aware, but at the SSI Institute, we did receive our very first SSI innovative grant.

I mean, I'm sorry, not grant. Innovative award. So we are very, very, very excited about that. That award is at the office, and we are trying to decide on where we want to display it. So if you guys have any suggestions of where that needs to be displayed, we would we would certainly be appreciative.

And we you you may see in your booklet some information from our security force. Yes. We are so excited to have them. I cannot tell you we have a staff meeting today, and I cannot tell you how excited people are that we feel safe now. It is going extremely well. They're gonna come and at the next board meeting, there's just, you know, some definitely some some additional information that I want to include before

we Director Director

Hunt? Hunt. Yes.

I think he's here today.

Oh. Okay.

Alan's here. Bruce Bruce and Jesse are not. They're gonna attend the next one, but I came on today.

Okay. And and we will listen to some information from you. Okay.

Okay. Thank you very much. I yield to him, please.

Okay. My

name is Alan Harden. Some of you know me, some of you don't. I retired from the sheriff's office a year and a half ago after twenty five years. I'm still part time, worked at courthouse and different stuff. Bruce is my partner, same thing. He retired about three years ago. He ran our forensics division for maybe the last ten years. He's also still part time with the sheriff's office. It it's we've got a list.

More person that needs it's 3? It's 2.

2. Okay. Jesse is the owner of Apex Security. Okay. He attended a meeting with Dee yesterday and then said he failed to heal last night. So he text me and said he wasn't gonna make it today, but he will be here on the next

one. Okay.

So it's just it's me and Bruce. If, you know, we're both getting older and we both got doctor's appointment, then Jesse, the owner of the company, will have to fill in for us. But we did a security assessment, went over with Dee and the team yesterday. We'll present that next at the next meeting. A lot of the stuff we're able to correct.

I mean, little stuff like we need a mirror here and we need, you know, no weapon signs Some policies that are definitely going to need change, no ordering. You know, we've got people coming in there, and they've got Wi Fi. You know, we have a heart if you wanna come in there and charge your phone and get some water and cool it off for an hour. But when you when you're there six or seven hours, you know, we have to draw a line. So we gotta get some to do then that.

Shelter during the day and basically drops them off there at our facility and then says, go do what you wanna do. You'll get back on the bus at 03:30. So so some of them are going here and there, and some of them are staying on the property. So we're trying to do it with kids' gloves, but also we have to manage it or it can become a problem. But we'll have more on the security assessment. Like I said, a lot of it is gonna be completed. Cameras are gonna be our big issue. I talked to Jay a while ago, and he was telling me kinda what he could do and this, that, and the other. I was stunned when I started working at the county for all these years and cameras I mean, everywhere you go, you're on camera. And except for the Hope House, there's not a camera in DSS, and I was flabbergasted Yeah.

That there's no cameras. And like Jay Jay had mentioned, he said, well, now that there's somebody there to watch them. So even like I said, I know money and budget, but even if I because we're in the basement, see the energy office in the corner. We put security signs up. We've got everything set up in there. If energy needs the office, we've agreed to slide over and share, but it it it was a perfect fit for us.

But, like, if I've got a

camera in the breezeway between a and b, I can see. And so I'm sitting in the seat belt, and instead of waiting for somebody to call and say somebody's trying to kick the door in, I can see somebody that looks suspicious, and I can get up and head that way. But so far, it's going it's going really well. Like I said, we had about 15 things on the security assessment we went over yesterday. But so far, everybody seems to be really receptive, and the ladies that and I say ladies because 90% of the people who work there are ladies.

But they're really happy to have somebody there. Probation eventually, don't have a timeline, but probation's going to move out. I don't think anybody except the people that works in Basement Of Building C has any idea how much they call probation. Hey, I've got a crazy over here. I've got somebody showing out over here. They use probation a lot. And with probation moving out, that's another good reason that we are here. Any questions?

Allen, do you mind just letting the board know since you guys are connected, although you were tight, you're connected with the sheriff's department and just how how many freebies we are getting? I think that's important as well.

How many what we're getting?

Freebies. Freebies. Like, for example you know, the the you're able to use your your walkie talkie Yes. Your radio to

Be yes, ma'am. Being that me and Bruce are still active, part time retired with the sheriff's office. I went to sheriff, and I said, hey. Can we use our radios? You know? If they call a deputy down there and they've not called me for whatever reason, I can hear it, and I can respond. Also, somebody comes in, starting trouble. Instead of waiting on somebody to call 911, I have access. I just get on there and coordinate with the oncoming officers. As a security officer, they want us to have that fine line because, obviously, if there's a felony if there's a felony, I can rest on or off duty.

But with the security job, they want us to have that fine line. But I can do more as a security officer than I ever imagined. If it's a felony, if it's damage to property, if it's assault, that kind of stuff, I can handcuff you. I mean, we've got pepper spray, acetons, guns certified through the state. But I can detain you.

I just can't put you in a car and take you to the Master's office, but I can put cuffs on you for those certain criteria to protect everybody there. But the sheriff agreed to let us use the radios. I just went and had it reprogrammed this morning. DSS has purchased several years ago two body cameras to try to monitor meetings or something, and evidently, that didn't work. Finally got the sheriff to approve because all the all the data and the videos are stored, like, on a server in Texas through Axon, and it's all through the sheriff's office.

So when I first inquired about it, it's like, well, y'all are private a private company, not part of the sheriff's office. And I said, well, let's see if we can make it work. So the sheriff's give us approval to use the body cameras. I actually got them from the DSS deputy today and started charging them. I've got two body cameras and an iPad. So we are gonna be able to use them about once a month. I'll come up to sheriff's office and put them on the docket and download them, and they'll be they'll be safe. If it's nothing to it, they're safe for, like, ninety days. But, like, if it's a felony case, if it's a bad case, and I put that in there, it'll save them forever. And that's all through the sheriff's office, and I appreciate the sheriff doing that.

Got an iPad. So, like, if we do have an incident, I can just pull up the iPad, and we can review the video. Now the we'll probably have to worry about a policy for the body cams, but I was thinking about that last night, Dee. I think everything with policy on the body cams and who can see them and everything else will revert back to the sheriff's policy because everything's running through the sheriff. So I think their policy is gonna cover us on the body cams. But the body cams, you can't just come up and say, I wanna see that. It it's a big, long process to do that. Well,

I am Thank you. I'm sorry.

Go ahead, Dee. I'm sorry.

No. That's okay. We can't see each other. But I just this is really one of the things that we've done here with the DSS office that I think that everybody everybody there just truly, appreciate, especially with the type of work that we're doing. I've I've heard from several people just in walking and just in talking how much they appreciate it. I've got a couple of saying thank you very much for for doing this. It it it just feels good to feel safe. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

And I was right. We were using the the the department so much. The the probation department just because they carry guns, you know, we'd go get them if if if we needed to. And so we've been moving out. We are ahead of the game. So we are so very excited and I will thank you for being here today.

We appreciate it. Another question, Dave. We we will provide the security assessment to the board next month. Correct?

That's correct. We wanted to wait until the chair was back so that, you know, we would have everybody there to do the assessment week exactly.

And that will give us time to correct the small things that we can correct.

Yes. That be great. The board was definitely with us on this, and they certainly approved it. So we definitely want to let the board know what the assessment looks like. So we'll be ready to share that with you guys next month.

Thank you.

One more thing in closing. I didn't realize y'all had this on the very back. Y'all will get this every month. And basically, we bill run-in total. Like, we had 15 calls, and we checked, you know, the parking lot 20 times and the buildings 40 times than that. And we'll do this. We're working we're working on a program that as we type it in, we'll transfer it over instead of me having to go back and do through. But we do have a law. We have it on the computer, and we actually have a paper copy every day of what we did. So, like, if you if you wanna come in there and look, I can pull it up on the computer.

Or there's a book that will show my daily sheet, and then it'll be compiled. Hopefully, and I'm not the one to do it because I'm not computer littered. But they're gonna try to do a program that when we type it in, it will transfer over to the end of the month report. But I did one with just the numbers, and Dee went and asked for this, and it was a very good idea because this gives you know, I had a lot of people said, I didn't know all that happened. And I'm like, you know, it it does. And like I said, I'm I'm really glad to be there and be a part of it. And I'll shut up.

Well, thank you so much.

I, for one, am excited to hear about this. And you would think that DSS would have had this in place already. Surprised that there's no cameras. Just something I never thought about because I just assumed. So this is great. This is really good.

I really love the the

Thank you.

Collaboration between the security company and the direct access to the sheriff's office too. Yeah. That's a very big asset.

Mhmm. And and director Hunt, I believe next month, were gonna have something on the staff that's there from the sheriff's department. You're gonna sit down and talk with someone about you still have a person on staff that works for the sheriff's department. Mhmm. And I think you were gonna give us a report on that next month. Is that correct? Is she going what?

D. I am so sorry. I was just talking and a I I still have you on mute because there's there's a noise around me out in the hallway. Yes. That is absolutely correct. Part of that information is also part of the assessment.

Oh, okay. Okay. Thank you. Look forward to that. Okay.

Yes. Okay.

Great. Thank you so much.

So did that the deputy that was here, she was part of the assessment then.

I sat down with her right when we got there and told her we need to work together. And so, yeah.

That's great.

Okay. Good question. So if I could just move past security, thank you so much, Alan. I appreciate you. You, Bruce, and Destiny. I just wanted to say that one little caveat. I really want to give a shout out to Jay and the IT team with Pat. This was this was huge. And and Jay can probably say, Jay, if you don't mind speaking up to say about how many hours this has taken from your unit. He's

he's not here, Dee.

Oh, they're here? Okay. It it was extreme. Like, it was a lot of work on their part. And, Tiffany, I'm gonna turn it over to you for just one moment so that I think it's important for the board to know and for anyone listening to know just how we have to work collaboratively with each other when the state makes these changes. And this change came fast and quick, and it took a lot of hours from IT. So, Tiffany, let me give you that, and then I I think I'll be done.

Yes, ma'am. I talked about it a little bit in my check-in that trip needs a huge IT a huge shout out because it was a lot of frustration. And still, we're we're still struggling with getting in the system and tickets being sent, and he has taken the time to do it. He has also expressed his frustration. So we're just working together as a team trying to make sure everybody get into the program because, I mean, we have to.

We don't have a choice. We have to have that program because it's it's tracking our data. And when cases are initiated timely and if we're not able to get into the system, the worker has to do it on a on paper or on iPad, and then they have to come back and upload it. So it looks like we're not doing our things timely when we are. So the collaboration has been amazing. It has just as much time. Last week, we've probably seen Trip more than I've seen him the whole time. He done worked here. Rest assured. He really, yeah, done a lot.

Yeah. I would venture to say that I know that they have spent a good one hundred and twenty hours Absolutely. On this. I mean, they have spent a lot of time, and he had to get everybody on. And we saw him. So if he was working with us, he was not working I mean, he was not doing his normal routine. So that's just added that added on to what everybody else was doing in the IT unit. So I just wanted everyone to know that we really appreciate the collaboration with Jay and IT team. Absolutely. And that's all I have on the director's report unless you have any questions for me.

Any questions? Thank you for the update, director Hunt. That's

Oh, absolutely. You're welcome.

Okay. Any announcements? I think Richard prepared reviewed the proposed rules of procedures from the DSS board. And I think from the chair, that will be discussed in next month's meeting. So if you got a copy, if you would review it, see if you have any adds or takeaway, we'll talk about that next week, next month, not next

week. Anything

else?

Think I think this has been a very informative meeting and again, DSS staff, you're doing a great job. Lot of changes, but you got seasoned people, so you're doing great. Making Rutherford County look good. So thank you.

And thank you and thank you and the board for your support. We certainly appreciate it. We couldn't certainly not do this with we couldn't do it without you. So we just wanna say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Also, tomorrow, we will be receiving the award from the commissioners association, the North Carolina Commissioners Association for the the North Carolina Innovation Award. The Brunswick County is excited about that.

Yes. And that's gonna be where?

It's going to be in Greenville, North Carolina. Okay. So I think it starts at at eleven. So I will leave Charlotte, the conference, in the morning around six and drive drive to Greenville, North Carolina, and then drive back here to the conference.

Okay. I hope you're busy. Okay. Thank you, director Hunt. Anything else?

Can I get a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

Second? Second. All in favor? Let me use this. Meet the jury.

Thank you for your

help today, Tiffany. Thank you.

No problem. Everybody. Thank you.

Okay. Bye. Alright.