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DeKalb County, Illinois |
Minutes of the
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HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE MINUTES MARCH 7, 2011
The Health and Human Services Committee of the DeKalb County Board met on Monday, March 7, 2011 @ 6:30p.m. in the Administration Building’s Conference Room East. Chairman Paul Stoddard called the meeting to order. Members present were Marlene Allen, Sally DeFauw, John Emerson, Jeff Metzger, Sr., and Derek Tyson. Ms. Karen Grush was also present.
APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES Moved by Mr. Emerson, seconded by Mr. Tyson, and it was carried unanimously to approve the minutes from February 2011.
APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA Moved by Mr. Metzger, Sr., seconded by Mr. Tyson, and it was carried unanimously to approve the agenda.
PUBLIC HEALTH DEPARTMENT UPDATE – MS. KAREN GRUSH Ms. Karen Grush, DeKalb County Public Health Director, approached the committee about an update on her department. Ms. Grush said that she usually gives her annual report in May of each year after the Health Department’s Annual Report and Financial Statement have been finalized. Those reports have not been finalized so at this time she wished to focus her presentation on changes that have taken place at the health department. Ms. Grush said that the year 2010 was the most difficult year of her career because of the 2011 proposed budget deficit that resulted in layoffs December 31, 2010. The Department had always been able to generate more revenue than expenses every year and set aside some revenue. As a result of that they have contributed over $3 million for the health department building and the space in the new Community Outreach Building for their Home Health Care Division. They had expected 2009 to be a wash for revenues and expenses, but the H1N1 outbreak opened up some grant monies for this. The Health Department then shifted some staff costs to the grant money that normally would have been covered by the public health levy. In the end in 2009 they were able to put away in the savings about $200,000, only because of that grant. Their 2010 budget had an approximate $160,000 deficit. They were going to use the money that they had saved from 2009 to pay for the expenses for 2010. The good news was that the deficit was only $50,000 for 2010. The bad news is that it was the first year in her career that they were not able to generate enough revenue to pay all of the expenses for the Health Department. The 2011 budget has a $465,000 deficit. They had started in 2009 making as many non-personnel cuts as possible. As a result, they had achieved a large savings in the 2010 budget, but they could not achieve any greater savings and still run the Health Department. Therefore, they had to look at services and staff to deal with the deficit this year. In terms of services, they discontinued the monthly Family Planning Clinic and WIC Programs in Sandwich. They were able to keep the immunization clinic in Sandwich. They have worked with Voluntary Action Center (VAC) to provide bus service for individuals from Sandwich to the Health Department in DeKalb. They discontinued their Well-Child Clinics. The Health Department worked with the Community Cares Clinic located in the Monsanto Building sponsored by NIU and Kishwaukee Hospital that provides medical services for low-income individuals, to absorb the children from the Health Department’s Well Child Clinic. This cut only absorbed $50,000 of the $465,000 deficit. The next step that the Health Department took was to cut personnel. The number of proposals were presented to the union to save bargaining unit positions, but the Bargaining Unit rejected the proposals. They had no choice but to lay off positions. Layoffs in Management and the Bargaining Unit were proportional. In administration they laid off the Director of Office Support and combined this position with the Director of Fiscal Operations with one person doing both positions called Director of Administrator Services. Under Environmental Health they eliminated a half-time office assistant and they reduced one sanitarian position to 3 days a week from a full-time position. In Home Care they eliminated a management position, 1 secretary position early in the year and another one in December. The Personal Health Services Division was cut the most. That program lost 25% of its staff, losing approximately 6 full-time equivalent positions. Mr. Metzger, Sr., asked Ms. Grush if she sees any cuts in the future. Ms. Grush said that she hopes not, but grant funding for 2012 is unknown at this time. Ms. Grush said the Health Department has a much leaner staff, will not be able to do all the things they have done in the past, but it is still a great Public Health Department and will continue to be in the future. The committee thanked Ms. Grush for a very informative report.
SENIOR SERVICES TAX LEVY PROPOSALS Chairman Stoddard reviewed the summary page that Ms. Moulton provided to the committee with the Senior Tax Levy Application packets. He said that she shows that they are almost $671,000 in requests made. He said, however, we only have $487,000 in funding plus another $70,000 found by Mr. Hanson and Ms. Moulton for a total amount of $557,000. We are still a good $100,000+ short in funding. Chairman Stoddard said that Ms. Moulton and Ms. Supple discussed this shortage and thought that the Veteran’s Administration might be able to help out any agencies that serve senior-citizen veterans. Ms. Moulton is exploring this idea further with Mr. Herb Holderman, Director of Veteran’s Administration for DeKalb County. She will get back to the committee on her findings. The committee then discussed the schedule for their two April meetings regarding the Senior Tax Levy Hearings. They decided that they would like to have a longer meeting on the first night and move one agency from the April 11th meeting to April 4th meeting, have Ms. Moulton check with Prairie State Legal Services to see if they will be attending and if not, then cancel their session and then eliminate the discussion of process item on the April 11th agenda. Since Chairman Stoddard cannot make the Executive Committee tomorrow night and neither can Vice-Chairman Metzger, Sr., Mr. Derek Tyson volunteered to represent the committee for them.
ADJOURNMENT Moved by Ms. DeFauw, seconded by Mr. Tyson, and it was carried unanimously to adjourn the meeting. Respectfully submitted,
__________________________________ Mr. Paul Stoddard, Chairman
____________________________________ Mary C. Supple, Secretary
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