DSS Board minutes 022012 - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF SOCIAL SERVICES February 20, 2012 2 Ms. Coston noted that the budget that will be presented next month will look different with these cuts. There is no longer much room to cut the budget without taking it directly out of child welfare. The NCACDSS and NCCCA are aligned in requesting that the state take part of the cut out of child care instead of child welfare only. Valerie Foushee expressed concern about when employees will be notified that cuts are coming to child welfare. She recommends that the agency craft a message allaying staff fears about layoffs. The nonprofit funding applications are now available. Sharron Hinton has the applications printed and available for Claire Millar and Pat Garavaglia. Ms. Coston read the list of eleven organizations that will need to be reviewed. Pat Garavaglia asked when the outside agency feedback was needed. Ms. Coston responded that the next Board meeting will give enough time. 2. Medicaid Transportation Nancy Coston informed the Board that there have been changes to the Medicaid transportation program. A federal audit in 2007 found issues with transportation services for Medicaid clients. The state did not address the issues and now is in jeopardy of losing funding. Since the state is now in corrective action, changes to policy have created many more checks and balances in the program. What was once a part-time job in Orange County will now require a significant amount of time. The new policy states verification will be required prior to scheduling transportation services as well as after receipt of services. There are more than twenty fields of verification information that will need to be completed for each trip as well as a monthly audit of 3% of all trips. The state will be auditing the program and paybacks will be required for any trips found in violation of policy. Many counties are adding additional positions to comply with the new regulations. Serena McPherson is currently trying to manage this program. One meeting has been held with OPT and additional meetings are likely. Albert Williams asked what the client impact is likely to be. Ms. Coston replied that a larger part of the burden to verify services will fall to clients. Depending on the final outcome of all this, clients could struggle to get to their medical appointments. 3. Work Force Development Board Sharron Hinton updated the Board on the status of work with the Work Force Development Board. There have been ongoing efforts to determine whether anything can be done differently in the alignment of the Work Force Development Board. Currently Orange County is aligned with a group that includes Randolph, Moore, Montgomery, and Alamance counties. Orange County does not typically align with these counties on economic development efforts for demographic reasons. Nancy Coston, Gwen Harvey and Ms. Hinton met with Durham County to determine whether there were other options in alignment. This region has a similar demographic to Orange County. At the last Work Force Development Board meeting, the Executive Director had talked with Durham County and proposed that the two regions work collaboratively as Work Force Development Boards. Frank Clifton suggested Ms. Coston and Ms. Hinton meet with the Economic Development Director to discuss job efforts with Durham County. Pam Hemminger is the Orange County