CHARLIE PETERS: Let's start with the Pledge of Allegiance.
ALL: I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the United States of America, and to the Republic
for which it stands.
One nation under God, indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all.
CHARLIE PETERS: As the county board proceeds with today's
agenda, we will provide an opportunity for public comment
regarding agenda items following each presentation and prior
to county board action.
Additional comments will not be heard
for items that have already completed
a public hearing process.
We ask that you fill out a public comment card in advance
and submit it to Suzy so that we can address each person in turn.
If you have a question that arises during a presentation,
please complete the card and submit it to Suzy as soon as you
are able.
If you are participating online, indicate your desire
to provide public comment in the chat box,
along with identifying information for the record.
So with that, we'll go on to roll call.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Malecha.
GALEN MALECHA: Yes.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Hoisington.
GERRY HOISINGTON: Here.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Peters.
CHARLIE PETERS: Here.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Purfeerst.
JIM PURFEERST: Here.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Underdahl.
STEVE UNDERDAHL: Here.
CHARLIE PETERS: It's showing we're all here.
We'll go to approval of the agenda.
Any changes or additions?
GALEN MALECHA: Motion to approve the agenda.
STEVE UNDERDAHL: Second.
CHARLIE PETERS: We have a motion by Commissioner Malecha.
Second by Commissioner Underdahl.
Any discussion?
Seeing none.
All those in favor, say "Aye."
ALL: Aye.
CHARLIE PETERS: That passes.
Approval of the minutes from the August 11, 2026 meeting.
JIM PURFEERST: Motion to approve.
GERRY HOISINGTON: Second.
CHARLIE PETERS: Motion by Commissioner Purfeerst.
Second by Commissioner Hoisington.
For the approval of the minutes, any discussion?
All those in favor, say "Aye."
ALL: Aye.
CHARLIE PETERS: Both same signed.
Minutes passed.
First on the list is Sheriff's Office.
MALE SPEAKER: Good morning, Commissioners, Mr. Chair.
CHARLIE PETERS: Good morning.
MALE SPEAKER: Just one order of business.
Looking to get permission or seek your approval
to enter into a contract to add a radio
booster to the government services building.
We do have a representative from Bechtel here.
I have Alan from IT and my emergency manager and director,
if you have any questions.
But what we've noticed over the years
is, especially since we started doing foot patrols when I became
sheriff, and our radio reception inside this building thing
is not very good, especially in the lower level.
And given the fact there's 283 county employees who work out
of this building, it's an area that we
need to be able to communicate when something we have
a critical incident that we need to operate inside this building.
So I'm looking for your approval to enter that.
And where's the money coming from?
I do have some money in my budget this year.
We did have $59,000 set aside for some other radio equipment.
And that was purchased at the very end of last year.
So I have that sitting there.
And I do have extra money.
So open for questions at this time.
And if you'd like to ask Brian from Bechtel
or anybody else any questions, they can come up.
CHARLIE PETERS: I guess the one question I have is--
we'll call it several.
Does the contract include the wiring costs and the roof,
if we got to go through the roof,
or is that Facilities doing all that?
Or is it total install with that price?
MALE SPEAKER: My radio keeps blinking out of range because I
don't have any service.
Ironic, right?
JIM PURFEERST: No, I going to say, your radio's working good.
MALE SPEAKER: My assumption is that it
includes everything except maybe going through the roof.
MALE SPEAKER: That's correct.
MALE SPEAKER: Yeah, correct.
CHARLIE PETERS: And Facilities will take care of that,
I believe, so.
And then the other question is, IT,
I see they had to go into the IT room, correct?
And work?
MALE SPEAKER: We have to have the equipment somewhere.
It's not really tied in with our IT systems.
So we can provide them whatever that they
need without any concern.
CHARLIE PETERS: Perfect.
Perfect.
Any other questions?
Commissioner Underdahl.
STEVE UNDERDAHL: One.
Do we have other county buildings
that have the same issue?
MALE SPEAKER: Yeah, so the courthouse
has the same issue, which will need to be addressed.
And I've spoken with Chris in Facilities,
and they're going to budget for that for next year.
The issue with-- well, I don't find it--
I don't see it as important as this building
because we have the checkpoint and we
have staff that are in that lower
level of the courthouse, which is the worst
part for radio reception.
But we have that manned with staff.
And if something happens, everything's on camera, per se.
And so that'll get addressed next year.
And I don't see a huge cost savings in doing
them both at the same time.
But by doing one this year, it keeps
that $80,000 off the levee.
And then next year, it can be budgeted for.
STEVE UNDERDAHL: And just to make a comment, because
of my time when I was in city council,
and particularly when 800 megahertz came into being,
the tower's up--
just so a lot of people understand it--
a tower is up on the east side of Faribault, and with the bluff
out there, most of downtown is shielded from the signal.
So this is not a unique problem to our facilities.
Actually, a lot of the downtown buildings,
if law enforcement has to go into lower level of noise,
they have no connectivity at all.
MALE SPEAKER: And I know we've used
Bechtel for our Public Safety Center when we built that.
And I believe talking with the emergency manager director, Joe
Johnson, that this is part of the fire code, Appendix P,
to have this system put in.
Now, given the fact that when this building was built,
it probably wasn't part of it.
But when we did the remodel, it probably
should have been addressed.
So it needs to get done.
So I'm just asking for your approval.
JIM PURFEERST: I have a question.
After this is installed, what kind of range
are you expecting to get with these radios?
Are you going to be able to get on one of your portables
and talk to a deputy up in Lonsdale, for an example,
if you need help?
MALE SPEAKER: We should be able to get on our radios
and talk to anybody in the state.
JIM PURFEERST: In the state.
MALE SPEAKER: Yep.
JIM PURFEERST: OK.
GALEN MALECHA: Motion to approve.
JIM PURFEERST: Second.
CHARLIE PETERS: We have a motion by Commissioner Malecha,
second by Commissioner Purfeerst for approval of the radio
boosters.
Any other discussion?
All those in favor, say "Aye."
ALL: Aye.
CHARLIE PETERS: Both same sign.
Motion passes.
Thank you.
MALE SPEAKER: Thank you.
CHARLIE PETERS: Environmental Services, Julie.
JULIE: Good morning.
JIM PURFEERST: Good morning.
GERRY HOISINGTON: Good morning.
JULIE: To have a few items from the Planning Commission.
The first item is from a request from the Towers, LLC,
on behalf of landowner Don Stadler,
for a conditional use permit to allow
for a communication tower in Section 32 of Walcott Township.
And the Planning Commission did recommend
approval with eight conditions.
JIM PURFEERST: Motion to approve with the eight conditions.
STEVE UNDERDAHL: Second.
CHARLIE PETERS: We have a motion by Commissioner Purfeerst,
second by Commissioner Underdahl for approval of the Towers
conditional use permit.
Any discussion?
Seeing none, all those in favor, say "Aye."
ALL: Aye.
CHARLIE PETERS: Against, same sign.
Motion passes.
JULIE: Next request is from Robert Gadicki
for an interim use permit for aggregate mining
operations for excavation of a pond in Section 28
of Waukon Township.
The Planning Commission did recommend
approval with 11 conditions.
GALEN MALECHA: Motion to approve.
GERRY HOISINGTON: Second.
CHARLIE PETERS: We have a motion by Commissioner Malecha,
second by Commissioner Hoisington
for the approval of the interim use permit for mining.
Any discussion?
All those in favor, say "Aye."
ALL: Aye.
CHARLIE PETERS: Opposed, same sign.
Motion passes.
JULIE: And then I have a request from Tom O'Mara,
on behalf of landowner Paula Johnson,
for a final plat to create two residential building lots.
And this is in Section 8 of Wells Township.
Planning staff is recommending approval with three conditions.
STEVE UNDERDAHL: Move to approve.
GALEN MALECHA: Second.
CHARLIE PETERS: Motion by Commissioner Underdahl,
second by Commissioner Malecha for approval of the final plat.
Any discussion?
All those in favor, say "Aye."
ALL: Aye.
CHARLIE PETERS: Opposed, same sign.
Motion passes.
JULIE: The next request is from Joe Franek for final plat
to separate a lot from an existing home in Section 15
of Wheatland Township, and the planning staff recommended
approval with three conditions.
STEVE UNDERDAHL: Move to approve.
GERRY HOISINGTON: Second.
CHARLIE PETERS: The motion by Commissioner Underdahl,
a second by Commissioner Hoisington
for approval of the final plat.
Any discussion?
Seeing none.
All those in favor, say "Aye."
ALL: Aye.
CHARLIE PETERS: Opposed, same sign.
Motion passes.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Thank you.
CHARLIE PETERS: Thank you.
Next, we have Child and Family, Chris.
CHRIS SAMMON: Good morning, Commissioners.
CHARLIE PETERS: Good morning.
STEVE UNDERDAHL: Morning.
CHRIS SAMMON: I'm here with Supervisor Tina Johnston.
She is the supervisor of a child support unit.
And we'll be talking with you this morning about a new grant
that we've been awarded.
So, Rice County, on behalf of the Next Step multi-county
partnership has been awarded a three-year grant
to provide employment and training
services to non-custodial parents
with child support orders.
This program provides opportunities for participants
to build work skills and establish long-term employment
and financial stability, and ability to meet their child
support obligations.
Funding for the program comes from the federal new generations
employment services grant awarded
to Minnesota late of 2024.
The program has been in planning and developing
for the last two years and is now ready to roll
out to the counties.
So Rice County has been awarded $24,615
annually for three years, which will total $73,845.
And this will be contracted to Workforce Development,
Incorporated, WDI, which is our local employment
services partner.
The contract has been received from the child support division
at the Department of Children, Youth, and Families,
and has been reviewed by the Rice County attorney's office,
and is ready for signature.
With the board's approval, when the contract
has been fully executed, a service agreement with Workforce
Development, Incorporated, WDI, will be prepared, reviewed
by the county attorney's office, and
a service agreement will then be executed
to implement the services.
So no new positions will be needed for Rice County Social
Services to administer the contract
nor for the master service agreement with WDI.
So with that, I'm going to pass it over to Tina,
and she'll walk us through some slides.
CHRISTINA JOHNSTON: Good morning, Commissioners.
Again, that's Christina Johnston.
And I am fortunate to have been invited
to speak about the Next Generation Employment
Services Demonstrative Grant.
On this next slide, you'll see that this grant is
a five-year federal grant awarded
to Minnesota DCYF Child Support in late 2024,
and it goes through 2029.
Rice County is part of a multi-county partnership
referred to in our region as Next Step, which
stands for skills training and employment
for non-custodial parents.
Counties participating under this grant
are Douglas, Grant, Pope, Rice, and Traverse,
who utilize the same employment services agency.
Additional counties participating
are Sherburne, Hennepin, and White Earth County.
Rice County will receive an annual award,
as Chris stated, of $24,615 over a three-year period,
totaling $73,845.
This is a pass-through contract for services.
Rice County partners with Workforce
Development, Incorporated for employment services.
We have a current contract for Minnesota
Family Investment Program and a proven partnership.
And again, there will be no new staff hired by Rice County
to provide these grant services.
My team will be serving an estimated 43
noncustodial parents over three years,
focusing on cases who have contempt orders,
have exhausted unemployment, and have made partial payments.
Roughly 279 of our clients are eligible for this program,
and about 40% of those residents are residing in Rice County,
rather.
Under the Employment and Training Services Program,
the things that are required would be case management, skills
assessments, developing and executed employment,
and training services plan, providing work supports as
needed, monitoring participant progress,
communicating regularly with the child support case
manager, our office, and then the employment service provider
is expected to provide job search assistance, job readiness
training, job development and job placement services, job
retention services, and work supports,
such as transportation assistance.
That's a little bit about this grant and the services
that will be provided by our agency,
and then extending into the employment services.
Does anybody have any questions?
CHARLIE PETERS: Commissioner Purfeerst.
JIM PURFEERST: I read in there that
the prevailing wage will kick in from the state
after a $25,000 grant.
Is that going to be within the realm of what we're doing
here within our county then?
Or where does this wage go to?
CHRISTINA JOHNSTON: I'm sorry, I guess I'm not understanding.
What do you mean, wage?
JIM PURFEERST: There's a prevailing
wage clause in this thing.
And it's on over $25,000, you have to follow their guidelines.
CHRISTINA JOHNSTON: For jobs received,
are we speaking about participants in the program
or are we speaking about staff?
JIM PURFEERST: I was assuming that would be staff in there.
CHRISTINA JOHNSTON: Staff, it's just a pass-through grant.
So whatever staffing needs that the contracted services they
would need, it would just be under that funded amount,
the $23,000--
I'm going to miss that number here-- $24,615.
JIM PURFEERST: Yeah, and I was going
to ask if that's-- in total, the grant is $73,000-something,
but--
CHRISTINA JOHNSTON: Over the next three years, yeah.
JIM PURFEERST: It didn't clarify to me
whether that was a yearly--
CHRISTINA JOHNSTON: Yep, it'll be an annual.
This one, this particular--
JIM PURFEERST: But as far as following their guidelines
for that prevailing wage--
CHRISTINA JOHNSTON: Right.
JIM PURFEERST: OK.
CHARLIE PETERS: That one figure, 40%,
live in Rice County out of all those other counties.
CHRISTINA JOHNSTON: Not out of all the other counties.
Out of the 279 participants.
A unique thing about child support
is that all our participants don't
actually reside in Rice County.
It's because it's established by jurisdiction
through court order.
So somebody could obtain a court order in Dakota County
and one participant, a non-custodial parent or a payer,
would live and reside in Dakota County,
but maybe the custodial parent has moved down to Rice County.
And we've maybe registered a court order here,
but that participant still resides in Dakota County.
They wouldn't be eligible for the workforce center
to serve them, but I could direct them, in partnership,
Hennepin County would agree to provide those services in kind.
CHARLIE PETERS: OK, thank you.
FEMALE SPEAKER: And if I could just
add clarification on the prevailing wage question.
CHRISTINA JOHNSTON: Thank you.
FEMALE SPEAKER: 18.2 addresses prevailing
wage, and that's for projects that include construction.
This is just a services contract and not a construction contract.
So that does not apply to what we're engaging in with WDI.
CHRISTINA JOHNSTON: Thank you for the clarification.
I wasn't exactly--
CHARLIE PETERS: Any other questions?
Comments?
Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion
for acceptance of the grant.
GALEN MALECHA: Motion to approve.
STEVE UNDERDAHL: Second.
CHARLIE PETERS: Motion by Commissioner
Malecha, second by Commissioner Underdahl for approval
of the grant.
Any discussion?
Seeing none, all those in favor say, "aye."
ALL: Aye.
CHARLIE PETERS: Opposed, same sign.
Grant approved.
Thank you.
CHRISTINA JOHNSTON: Thank you.
CHARLIE PETERS: Next, we have Community Services, Rick.
RICK: Good morning, Commissioners.
CHARLIE PETERS: Good morning.
JIM PURFEERST: Morning.
RICK: Well, thank you.
Thanks for the opportunity for Community Services
to come up here and share some updates regarding
the legislative changes that are going to have an impact,
and share a little bit about our 2027 outlook.
I have Chris Sammon, Mike Johnston, Megan Thomas,
and Angela with me here today.
So they'll share some updates from their divisions as well.
But real quick, I just wanted to point
out, in regards to our organizational structure--
thanks, Sarah.
We have 186 employees over the four departments,
and that stayed pretty intact.
We're not making any additional requests for 2027.
We haven't made any requests or added any for 2026.
We do have one position here, probably
this fall, the Compass coordinator,
but that is grant funded.
And I just wanted to point that out,
because what we're seeing here, with our caseloads and our work,
the volume of our work is increasing.
And with the cost shifts that are coming from the state,
it puts us in that challenging position
where we're kind of being asked to do more with less.
But that's not a bad thing.
There's a lot of opportunity that comes with that, too.
And I think that's where we as an organization
work closely together, also with our other county departments
and external partners.
And one of the things I thank you
guys for your support, and also Sandy's work, and Facilities,
Chris, Sam, and Nicole is the telematics.
And one thing to share is that last year alone,
between Community Corrections and Social Services,
what we paid out in mileage was $282,000.
$155,000 of that was in personal mileage.
So we really want to shift and have more use of that motor pool
than our personal mileage.
And so this is one great way to seek an efficiency
and help us through our budget and some of these changes.
Another one we're looking at is into the use
of AI, artificial intelligence.
That technology some counties are using specifically
in their Social Services departments
to help field large volume of calls,
and also take the calls for people applying
for public assistance where then AI is reading the rights
and responsibilities.
And Mike Johnston and I kind of looked into that a bit,
and I think we came up with--
working with IT too-- that the volume of calls that
we take in Social Services is a little
around 35,000 for the year.
And a lot of employee time is spent on reading the rights
and responsibilities.
So this is something we're looking at too.
Reimbursements.
I'll share real quick.
That kind of regards our juvenile out-of-home placements.
The per diem to place the juvenile
has significantly increased just in the last five or six years.
There's a great cost to these line items in our budget,
whereas in the past, we usually did a good job
staying under budget.
We go over budget now in these areas,
and we're having less placements.
That's how much the impact these rising costs are.
So one thing that we'll try to take a deep look into is,
are we collecting everything we can from MA or even Title 4E
to get some reimbursement back for the cost
of these placements.
And then finally, continue to focus on employee retention.
There's a greater cost at continuing to hire, and onboard,
and train new staff.
So we're looking at that as well.
So certainly, we have some challenges ahead of us.
But there's good news too.
So we're optimistic here.
And we'll pass it over here to Chris Sammon
to share some things from the Child
and Family Services Division.
Thank you.
CHARLIE PETERS: Thank you.
CHRIS SAMMON: Passing it to me first,
because I'm the good news.
[LAUGHS]
I'll share with you that, and we spoke about this
before, there's some special one-time money
that's coming in 2027.
There's a lot of work that will be done
in the legislative session to try and build that out to being
ongoing, because it's certainly going
to be some additional areas that we'll need some resources.
But we do have that one-time funding coming
for the implementation of the Minnesota
African-American Family Preservation Child
Welfare Proportionality Act.
We will be getting some guidance within the next couple of weeks
that's promised to know which specific areas will be focused
on with that Act for 2027.
And it's written in there that every two years,
the specific group that gets those services
is determined based on the disproportionality
across the state.
So much more to come with that one.
We were also awarded, as we spoke last week,
about the Regional Child and Adolescent
Mental Health Initiative grant.
This is going to be building out some services in our child
mental health area.
And I can report that overall, the allocations
and grants in my division have been fairly stable.
Across the spectrum of them, we have a change
of an increase of about $3,000.
So some of them dipped a little, some went up a little.
This is separate from that one time allocation of $129,000.
So for the most part, the allocations in my area
have been pretty stable.
As Rick just alluded to, there is many mandated programming
costs in the Child and Family Services area, especially
with those out-of-home placements.
And as he mentioned, we are serving fewer
in out-of-home placement, and it's
costing much more than we've been able to
or that we have been budgeting in the past.
This year we are coming in under budget,
but in our area, that's one or two
significant placements away from changing the story on that.
So that's the good news.
I'll hand it over now to my partners.
CHARLIE PETERS: Thank you.
Who's going to keep the good news coming?
[LAUGHTER]
MEGAN THOMAS: I thought I was last for a reason.
So good morning, Commissioners.
CHARLIE PETERS: Good morning.
MEGAN THOMAS: Adult Services.
Many of you have heard many of these impacts coming our way
specifically to Adult Services.
And I feel we have a pretty significant potential of things.
We've got one legislative session ahead of us
where MACSSA is working really diligently--
actually, we're leaving for MACSSA this afternoon--
to start grinding out our legislative priorities
to address these things.
So we'll start with the potential impact
of long-term services and supports and those cost shifts.
What initially appeared to be a potential, either 2% or 5%,
hit to waivered residential services,
is now looking to be a little bit different.
DHS has put out some preliminary reports for each county,
and MACSSA has shared that with us.
We are still seeking some additional input
from DHS on what this is going to look like.
And so right now, what we're hearing
is that counties are going to lie somewhere in the middle.
And for us, that looks to be maybe at about 3.5% overarching.
And the different categories of residential services,
I should share with you, that get looked at
has to do with waivered residential settings.
So group homes, foster care, customized living,
family residential services, and integrated community support.
So general overview, in 2024, the Developmental Disabilities
unit put out really more than $25 million in DD Services
here in Rice County.
And Cat Caddy NBI, the other waiver programming,
put out about $20 million.
So if 2028 looks to be at that 3.5% cost shift, what they're
saying now a little bit more, and again, we're trying to get
more specific in the weeds, is that's going
to change every year if we get faced with that.
And that's going to really depend.
Our numbers fluctuate.
We're not always consistent with case numbers.
So we're hoping to get more guidance
and get real about what those numbers are.
But like I said, going into this legislative session,
we're really hoping.
Last year, there was an advisory task force
that was mandated to be put together to look at these cost
shifts and have a group of very well-rounded, talented people
across the state that know this work inside
and out to come together and try to come
up with ways that counties can offset this and divert that.
And in the 2026 session, DHS and the state of Minnesota
did not accept any of those recommendations.
And that's why I say we have one last ditch
effort to make this happen so that we're not impacted
with those cost shifts.
We are serving at a more higher rate of increased complexities.
You've heard me say that over and over and over again.
The demand is unbelievable.
And the people we're serving are just at an all-time high.
And this has not stopped since COVID.
And we're trying to serve those people with less resources.
And I know you guys are hearing this all the time,
but it's true, our providers are serving more termination notices
on more of our complex individuals,
which in turn makes the demand of case management,
guardianship, having to try to find appropriate placement
in an appropriate time frame.
So that has really stressed staff out more than we've
ever seen in the past.
We've had an increased demand of programming changes.
MnCHOICES has been one of our biggest ones.
So that is kind of our launch into services
and supports with MnCHOICES.
They did a redesign, I've spoken about that
in the past, where they rolled out with MnCHOICES 2.0.
So they really gutted that platform and redid it.
I wouldn't even say we're proficient in it
because there still is always changes.
There's still always problems with the platform.
They ridded of PCA and now have implemented CFSS, which is
more of a budget agency model.
And so this in itself has created an increase in appeals,
because well, DHS as MnCHOICES is more accurate in calculations
and the number of hours people can
receive for support in a day.
It has significantly changed the outcome.
So if somebody was receiving, let's say,
eight hours of PCA in a day, now with CFSS,
it might have dropped to five.
And so that brings us right into an appeal, which individuals
have the right to appeal.
I will say this cautiously, our appeals judge
don't really understand MnCHOICES and the process.
And so that takes a lot of time and effort
from our staff to work the appeals
and prove that we're really just following the implementation
of MnCHOICES and CFSS.
And that's what the state has chose to roll out.
CFSS alone, so if somebody accesses that service
and they don't go on a waiver, that is
managed by my MnCHOICES unit.
They don't have case management.
So essentially MnCHOICES is the case management for CFSS.
Another piece to that is that it has created a constant turnover
of staff having to adjust service agreements,
authorization of services.
One of the things that the state rolled out with CFSS
was Consultative Services.
We have lacked the number of providers
to be able to work with families to lift those services up.
So all of that work is dumped back onto the MnCHOICES unit,
and those individuals doing those.
Ironically, that is one of the LTSS Advisory Task Force
recommendations is just to get rid of Consultative Services
altogether.
Which is fine because we're doing it anyways,
but there's no reimbursement for that.
I mean, there is, but it's not catching up with the actual work
that they're doing.
It is a lot higher demand to implement
this support for individuals and families
than what it pays out to be.
The last one is Individualized Home Supports.
So that is another change coming.
We don't have a launch date for that yet.
Individualized Home Supports is where
people can receive services in their own homes
and family homes.
It can be with training, without training.
With training just means that you're actively teaching
somebody to develop a skill.
Without training is that you're trying to maintain skills
that people already have to achieve
that level of independence.
It can include family support.
A person may have been built in with 16 hours of IHS
to support them each day, and now they've
put in service limits or parameters
and they can't be any more.
So let's say you have three hours of training with a staff.
That's the limit of all you can have for training.
And then you have to find other services to supplement
the other 13 hours that they once
received support in their home.
So there's these rule changes, I think,
to be cost effective with a budget at the state level.
But the impacts that we're seeing
down here on a real client level is problematic.
And so if somebody needed 16 hours of support
in their home to meet their needs,
we can't give them that because we have service limitations now.
So now staff are having to get real creative about what
that looks like.
Some of the suggestions from the state
has been remote supervision or technology.
And you and I both know, not every person with a disability
can live in their home and be supervised by a camera.
That's not realistic.
The last thing that's impacted Adult
Services potentially is our new state
paid family and medical leave.
We have a number of individuals that are out in and enjoying
births and things that are beyond our life control,
but when you have two people out of a six-person unit,
the work just overwhelms staff.
So I've spent the last couple of weeks in a number of unit
meetings trying to get creative about what we can do to support
people that are just really heightened emotionally
with caseload coverages, and how can we
get creative to support them and maintain
morale and keep retention.
We have some awesome staff downstairs.
We have built some teams that are truly remarkable people.
But when their caseload personally is 60
and now they're having to cover 120 because their two coworkers
are out on a leave, which again, is fine,
it is what it is, it just makes that stress even more.
So those are some of the things that we're kind of facing.
And like I said, we're heading off to MACSSA.
And we need your continued support at your platforms,
and we'll continue working within MICA, MACSSA, and all
of our legislators and positions that we have to try
to steer some of the stuff off.
One of the things--
I'll go back to MnCHOICES really quick, because I failed to say
is, and I spoke about this in the past, but as a reminder
that there's sunsetting the social services time study.
So the reimbursement for MnCHOICES.
And they have had, and I've been a pleasure
to be a part of that task force, to look at alternative ways
to fund counties for MnCHOICES.
Anywhere from flat rate reimbursements
to a varying scale of percentages.
And there has not been a reach to what that might look like.
There is a potential of entertainment
that appears to be coming our way to completely move MnCHOICES
to the state level and no longer administered at the counties.
I don't know that I can support that.
I think that we hold ownership to the people that we work with,
and we're invested in our community and the people
that we serve.
And some of these people we have been
serving and seeing year after year after year after year.
So that's a hard one to swallow.
And hopefully we can get a little more clarification
this week too on where that's coming from,
but I wanted to share that with you as well.
So do you have any questions for me?
CHARLIE PETERS: Questions, Commissioners?
Commissioner Underdahl.
STEVE UNDERDAHL: Megan, just what I'm
hearing with a lot of these is, there's program reductions,
but I'm gathering that on the flip side,
there's not a mandate for us to provide more than what
the requirement is or is there?
MEGAN THOMAS: All of these are mandated services.
It's the work within the scope of these changes
that is creating more work.
So yes, the revenue is going down
or potentially cost shifting from state to county,
and sharing that responsibility where we're taking
on more than the state is.
So when they redesign MnCHOICES, that doubled the work in itself.
When they got rid of PCA and implemented CFSS,
that quadrupled the work in itself.
So yeah, within these things, they're all mandated.
They restructured things that counties
are just bearing the brunt of all of it with no support.
STEVE UNDERDAHL: OK.
CHARLIE PETERS: Sarah, did you--
FEMALE SPEAKER: Just circle back to LTSS for a moment,
for the budget.
So this can be policy discussion later on if you want it to be,
but we did budget for half a year of the LTSS cost shift.
What we did, just under 1% levy increase to account
for that half a year.
So then the following year, it would be another.
If this goes as is--
MEGAN THOMAS: Possibly 3 and 1/2, who knows.
FEMALE SPEAKER: It would keep moving.
But some counties are kind of hedging on
that the legislature will do something next year
and we won't have to take this on.
So this is something that we have in our budget,
but if we get close to December and you all
feel through your discussions or things
that you want to look at maybe not levying for it
and seeing what happens, that is a policy decision.
Right now we do have it in our budget
because things have not indicated otherwise.
And we won't know until legislative session next year.
And so right now, this is in our budget.
Some counties are not.
So I want to make sure I was transparent about that.
And that can be a policy decision before we set
final in December with you all.
CHARLIE PETERS: So am I correct?
1% it will add to our levy?
FEMALE SPEAKER: Almost 1% for half a year.
Correct.
MEGAN THOMAS: Thank you.
CHARLIE PETERS: Any other questions or comments?
Go with Gerry first.
GERRY HOISINGTON: Megan, how many adults are we serving now?
Do you have any idea?
MEGAN THOMAS: Close to 400 on the waiver.
GERRY HOISINGTON: OK.
And could you touch base a little bit more on,
you said in-home services.
What does that look like?
I mean, how does that work?
MEGAN THOMAS: Are you referring to the IHS, Gerry,
the Individualized Home Supports, or just--
GERRY HOISINGTON: You had mentioned that your hours
were cut from three to--
you had 16, now it cut to three.
MEGAN THOMAS: So that could look like somebody
is living at home with their mom and dad still,
and they're on a waiver.
And they were receiving in-home support.
So a provider or maybe the family members
themselves are delegating or receiving a number of hours
during the day where they're using those training skills.
So maybe you have somebody in that 18 to 21
transitional phase, and you're working
on budgeting, and money skills, and some of
those independent life skills.
That could fall under family with training.
It could also compromise of, like,
meal preparation and cooking.
So some of those basic ADLs, or activities of daily living,
that you and I already know how to do,
hopefully, but people with disabilities
don't always know how to do that.
And so it could also mean where somebody
is living independently in an apartment
and being served by a provider.
Laura Baker, for example.
And we have an individual that's living in her own apartment
independently and served by Laura Baker,
had a high number of individualized home supports
with training to maintain her there.
So these service limits are impacting people
at real time and real places.
GERRY HOISINGTON: So when you actually have staff with them
during that time, that's how it works?
MEGAN THOMAS: Not everybody is able to be independent
or home alone.
You have some people that can, some people that can't.
But it's how, yeah, we're working
on either improving independent skills
or maintaining independent skills.
GERRY HOISINGTON: OK.
Thanks for that clarification.
MEGAN THOMAS: You bet.
CHARLIE PETERS: Commissioner Malecha.
GALEN MALECHA: Sure.
So you kind of touched on it.
So Individual Home Support, and you have Laura Baker
that does family navigation.
MEGAN THOMAS: Correct.
They do.
Yep.
GALEN MALECHA: So how does that work?
Just say, for example, you have an individual
that was living on their own.
So who pays?
How does that get paid?
How does that all work?
MEGAN THOMAS: So my understanding
is that the family navigation is,
Laura Baker is billing families or individuals for that service.
GALEN MALECHA: So it's a direct pay or is there a government--
MEGAN THOMAS: I am not aware that it is an MA-funded service.
I think they are charging families for that service.
And so if they have a family, let's say,
that relocates to Northfield from a northern county
and they're seeking services for their loved one,
they may seek out Laura Baker and do family navigation rather
than coming to the county and essentially
getting the same thing.
We work pretty closely with the navigators,
have had a couple meetings, and we are essentially
doing the same stuff.
But they are billing for that.
I mean, we wouldn't be able to bill for it either.
They're providing those recommendations,
like establishing a school.
Do they need an IEP?
Do they need a waiver?
We start with a MnCHOICES.
So they help those families and people
walk through that as well.
GALEN MALECHA: So we don't bill for it,
is that what you're saying?
MEGAN THOMAS: No.
If somebody walks into the county's front door and says,
"I need help at home," it starts with our intake social worker
to gather more feedback, and then we feed that
to the appropriate department.
And if it goes to MnCHOICES for referral,
MnCHOICES puts them on the list and we complete the MnCHOICES.
So yeah, those aren't billable services until we
actually start doing the work.
GALEN MALECHA: OK.
CHARLIE PETERS: Any other comments?
GERRY HOISINGTON: Charlie.
CHARLIE PETERS: Commissioner Hoisington.
GERRY HOISINGTON: Thank you.
Well, this, Megan, might be more directed towards Rick.
Rick, you gave us a number of how many yearly calls
you get in social services.
35,000, is that--
RICK: That is correct.
Yeah, and that, I think, goes all to the front main line
number that we checked.
So that's where they get into the phone tree.
But on the addition, 35,000 calls a year to the front main
line, in addition to that, kind of what I was
mentioning was potential use of AI,
it's also these other points--
FEMALE SPEAKER: Rick, can I have you go to the mic, please?
Thank you.
GERRY HOISINGTON: So excuse me, I just got a text
from one of my constituents.
Sherry, they said they couldn't listen.
FEMALE SPEAKER: They couldn't hear.
He wasn't at a speaker.
RICK: That's my bad.
I'll repeat it here.
Yes, 35,000 calls come to the direct main line per year.
And what I was mentioning earlier, in addition,
if there was a potential use of AI,
there's all these when a call does go through
and it goes through income maintenance, that's
where they read the rights and responsibilities for those
applying for public assistance.
But 35,000 calls is what we're looking at.
Those are the ones that come through.
We also have a very confusing phone tree where I
think a lot of people give up.
So if you call the main line, you
might be on it for a while where it's like, for this,
press 1, for this, press 2, and it kind of goes up
to 10, instead of being able to just say,
what are you looking for?
So I guess what I'm getting to is 35,000
is probably what we take.
Yeah.
GERRY HOISINGTON: That is a big number, in my humble opinion.
RICK: It is.
CHARLIE PETERS: Any other questions or comments?
Well, thank you for the bad news.
MEGAN THOMAS: I know.
Thanks.
Thank you.
MALE SPEAKER: Good morning, Commissioners.
CHARLIE PETERS: Good morning.
STEVE UNDERDAHL: Good morning.
MALE SPEAKER: I'm going to give an overview of how
federal and state legislation is potentially
going to impact Rice County.
Before I review some of the legislative impacts,
I'm going to give a brief overview of Rice County
administered programs, in particular, public assistance
programs.
Rice County determines eligibility and maintenance
for approximately 10,000 cases, of which 7,000
are medical assistance cases.
And Rice County also administers approximately 2,000 SNAP cases.
We also maintain and determine eligibility
for TANF, MFIP family cash programs, adult cash programs,
housing support, emergency assistance,
and county burial assistance.
The average caseload size for each financial eligibility
worker is 280.
There are several significant legislative changes that
directly impact Rice County.
HR 1, or the Reconciliation Act, or commonly
known as the Big Beautiful Bill, was signed
into law on July 4, 2025.
The legislation shifted funding from the federal government
to counties, the first of which is the increased cost
to administer our SNAP program.
In 2025, the federal government and the county administrative
funding was split 50/50.
Starting in the fourth quarter of this year,
it shifted to 75% funding for the county and 25% funding
for the federal government.
In 2025, the county cost to administer
the SNAP program was $725,000.
The shift, starting in the fourth quarter of this year,
will bring the 2026 total to $857,000,
so approximately $150,000 increase
just for this fourth quarter.
In 2027, the county responsibility will be $1.2
million, which is a $400,000 increase
from '26 to '27 from federal funding shifted to the county.
The second significant impact is the benefit cost
share determined by a state error rate.
Prior and including this year, the federal government
funded 100% of all SNAP benefits issued.
Starting in the fourth quarter of 2027,
states will share a cost of funding actual benefits based
on each state's error rate.
Minnesota has decided to shift these costs to the counties.
The current error rate for the state of Minnesota
is approximately 13%.
That 13% bracket puts us into a 15% county
cost share for SNAP benefits.
The projected impact for the fourth quarter
for 2027 is $163,000 shift from the federal
government to Rice County.
There is some discussion that the state may split that error
rate cost shift with the county's 50/50,
but nothing definitive yet, except just discussions.
The combined legislative impact for 2027
is $563 shifted from the federal government to Rice County.
Additional impact from legislative changes
is the increased workload for financial eligibility workers.
Legislation has introduced work requirements
for certain individuals that receive medical assistance.
This means that certain populations
must meet a minimum work requirement
to receive ongoing eligibility.
The tracking and redetermine of eligibility
will be a significant increase for the workers.
In addition, legislation has also
introduced six-month renewals for certain Medicaid recipients.
This is a change from an annual renewal,
and now it will be a six month, plus an annual renewal.
These last two changes will significantly
increase the volume of work at the same time
with having all of the decrease funding.
So those are the fairly significant legislative changes
for Rice County.
CHARLIE PETERS: Any questions?
Comments?
JIM PURFEERST: I have a question.
CHARLIE PETERS: Commissioner Purfeerst.
JIM PURFEERST: You were talking there's 2,000 SNAP cases.
What's a case consist of?
Is that a household or an individual?
MALE SPEAKER: That's just an individual case.
We serve approximately 4,000 total recipients,
but just 2,000 cases.
JIM PURFEERST: OK.
Thank you.
CHARLIE PETERS: Question for Sarah, actually.
What's this levy effect?
FEMALE SPEAKER: So for next year, 1% levy is a little
over $400,000, like $430,000.
So if you look at the cost shift, that's 1%.
The SNAP error rate, that's just going to be under half a percent
there.
But we'll talk total, because they've done really,
really good work, a lot of meetings, a lot of diving
into reimbursements, looking at efficiencies,
some of the one-time money coming in.
So we'll sum up the total levy impact at the end.
But you can see all these individual pieces
put a lot of pressure on it.
And as a department, they're coming in
under what the total shifts are, including salary
increases and things like that.
So we'll sum that up at the end.
But as part of a shift, we did have
to figure out how to offset this somehow or put it on the levy.
So again, around that $430,000, [INAUDIBLE] is 1% levy increase.
CHARLIE PETERS: OK, thank you.
Any other?
Commissioner Hoisington.
GERRY HOISINGTON: Yeah, I know you've clarified this for us
before, but this error rate is, like, 13%,
or whatever you said it was.
But our error rate in Rice County is much lower in that.
Is that correct?
MALE SPEAKER: Correct.
We receive error rates quarterly.
And I believe Sarah and Rick are able to review those.
But each time I have a discussion with Rick,
and I said, we need to be careful about being
excited about a 0% error rate.
So oftentimes we have 0%.
But with the 2,000 cases, in a year's time, they may review
four to seven cases total.
So it takes one error out of those cases
to bring our error rate from 0% to 25%.
For example, if they review four cases, what they're looking at
is the total of benefits issued.
So in this example, out of four cases, let's say
we issued $1,000 in benefits.
If they find an error in one of those cases
for $250, that brings our error rate up to 25%,
because it's the amount of benefits
we issued with the error amount divided by the four cases.
And so it could very easily jump from 0% to 25%.
There's an example where an individual,
when we determine eligibility for SNAP,
we start with their income.
And then we use certain deductions
to get their income down, so they might
be eligible for more benefits.
One of which is we use a portion of rent
as a deduction from their income.
An individual was displaced from their home in February,
and due to flood damage or it could be a fire
or it could be mold damage, whatever it might be,
they're displaced from their home
and had to stay with family and friends.
During that time, they were not required to pay rent
for their landlord, but during this quality control review
by the state, they determined that we were giving that rent
deduction for that one month they were out of the house,
but they weren't actually paying rent.
So there's an error rate of $250.
We were not aware of that.
But even the individual, the recipient of SNAP,
was required to report that to our agency,
but never reported it.
It still counts as an error for us.
So that $250 could equate to a 25% error rate.
And this has been scenarios that have occurred before.
GERRY HOISINGTON: I guess I don't understand that math.
I mean, how one incident would all of a sudden
bring you from 0% to 25% error rate.
I'm not clicking with that.
MALE SPEAKER: Yeah, if there's $250
of error out of $1,000, and there's four cases,
it equates to 25%.
If it were five cases in a $200 error rate over $1,000,
it would be a 20% error rate.
CHARLIE PETERS: So they just go off of the cases
that they pull out.
Yes.
And not our total amount of cases, just the four or five
that they pull.
MALE SPEAKER: The interesting thing
about Minnesota's error rate.
So we've traditionally had a lower error rate
than the rest of the country.
In just the last couple of years, due to several factors,
we're up to about a 13% error rate.
A lot of that has to do with the technology
that is in front of us.
It's highly complex, it's outdated,
and it increases error rate sometimes.
GERRY HOISINGTON: So this 13% error
rate is shared by all of our state, all of our counties?
Is that how it works?
MALE SPEAKER: Correct.
CHARLIE PETERS: Any other questions?
Comments?
Thank you.
MALE SPEAKER: Thank you.
CHARLIE PETERS: Angela.
ANGELA: Good morning, Commissioners.
CHARLIE PETERS: Good morning.
ANGELA: I don't know if it's better
or worse to be the last one up.
[LAUGHTER]
GERRY HOISINGTON: Let's say better.
JIM PURFEERST: Bring good news.
ANGELA: I have really a mixed bag of positive and negative
news to share.
And if you've ever done any professional development work
and read the book, Eat That Frog,
that's where I'm going to start.
The principle of that is, you tackle the hardest thing first.
GALEN MALECHA: What's the name of the book?
ANGELA: Eat That Frog.
So in the Community Corrections world,
we have mostly mandated services,
but we also have a lot of trickle down effect of things
that occur at the state level that impact those mandates
that are not always as obvious as they may be in other places
where you have a very obvious shift into your work.
So I do want to talk a little bit about that in terms
of the CCA subsidy and funding from the state and services
that we're required to do.
So that's the frog of this part of the presentation,
I'd like to tackle the negative piece first.
And we can talk a little bit about some
of the positive things happening in our arena after that.
The challenging part about budgeting for the 2027 calendar
year is that next year is a biennium
budget year for the state.
And so right now, what we're planning for the funding
in our CCA subsidy in the second half of 2027
is speculation based on the funding formula, where we expect
our case load numbers to be, and a variety of other policies
that may be a subject of discussion
during the legislative session.
Last year, when we planned our budget,
we had a surprise deduction from our CCA subsidy
that we weren't aware was going to be a shift to us.
And that was in terms of our county's prorated cost
of the interstate compact unit.
So when that cost shifted back to the counties last year,
that just became a deduction off of your calculation
of your CCA subsidy.
So our planning for the '26 budget
was a little bit overfunding on paper than what it looked
like when everything shook out.
And so this year, in planning the 2027 budget,
I took a look at the models that we would have in the upcoming
biennium for funding for public safety
and took the more conservative route for that, which would be
no change in the public safety funding
and that deduction from Interstate Compact.
That is a conversation you may have heard in your platforms
through AMC.
Both of those topics have been discussed,
primarily the public safety funding bill,
for a very long time.
As you might recall from those discussions,
that has been underfunded by 10 to $12,000
per year in the statewide look in their viewpoint.
The Community Corrections counties and other state
probation counties around the state
just completed a workload study that was part of the CSAC
recommendations, is that we do a statewide study to see what
is the actual need for probation and supervised release
services across the state.
And that is supposed to be used to inform the public safety
funding formula.
So I anticipate in your AMC platforms,
you will hear about that in discussion
as we move toward the legislative session in 2027.
And would really encourage you to be
a part of those conversations to really promote
fair and equitable funding for public safety,
because that is a place where cost, in a more subtle way,
shift back to the counties.
If we are underfunded, but we still have the same level
of mandated services to provide in our communities,
it's a shift out of that funding formula.
So really encourage you to pay attention to conversations
around that workload study.
We have not seen the results of that yet,
so I don't know what their recommendations are.
But we are still seeing the impact of implementation
of the 2023 legislative session that
has taken the last few years for the CSAC deliverable committees
to really get those policies underway, get
those practices in.
The state just completed a validation study
on the Risk Needs tool that's used statewide, which they had
planned also to use results of to set forward statewide contact
standards.
And if you've been following that at all
in your other committee platforms,
that validation study came back with significant challenges
to the validation with Minnesota's population.
So there are a lot of conversations happening
about what is the direction we will
take as a state in terms of seeking or revalidating
Risk Needs tool.
Again, one of the things I think is important for you
to listen for in those conversations
is really thinking about what their solutions or their
proposed solutions to that are.
One of them that's on the table right
now is to increase the cutoff scores of that risk assessment
to better match the validation of the tool, which sounds
great on paper, but when you think about it in practice,
one of the things you've heard from everyone else in Community
Services is that our needs of our population
have increased so significantly.
And for us in Community Corrections, a lot of that
centers around people's mental health.
We've seen a significant increase
in people with severe mental illness
coming into the corrections system.
That is a piece of a person's overall risk in need
that is not measured by that risk assessment tool.
So if they set the standards higher, meaning less people
are on supervision, that looks great on paper.
But in practice that does not make our communities
necessarily safer.
It does not mean we are serving the people who
really may need that service to avoid
continued criminal behavior.
And the other impact that it has that you don't see
in those recommendations is that in the Community Correction
subsidy formula, less supervised individuals equates
to less of your CCA subsidy.
So we are servicing people with very high needs.
And if that shrinks, those needs are still in our community.
They're being unserviced.
And that cost shift mostly shifts over to law enforcement
then if they have continued criminal behavior,
but they're not on supervision and we're
not providing interventions.
At the same time, the piece of the CCA
subsidy received by the county would be shrinking.
So workload may be higher, even with less actual individuals
on supervision.
And that is what we're seeing as a trend in the last 12 to 18
months, is that our caseload numbers have actually gone down,
which is why we have a negative impact in our CCA subsidy
in the forecast for the next biennium.
But our workload has gone up, much like the other divisions
in Community Services, primarily due to the high need of
the population we are serving.
So in terms of mandated versus non-mandated in the Community
Corrections world, you've heard me say in many presentations
before, we don't have an eligibility criteria,
so to speak, when people come to the door.
No one comes to us voluntarily asking for service.
We receive individuals from the court.
When law enforcement is busy, it translates into court busyness,
which somewhere down the line translates
into more folks for us.
One of the things that I also know from other conversations
across the CJC meeting in particular, where Mr. Mortensen,
our county attorney, presented numbers
about backlogged cases and the timeliness
of cases coming through the court system in Rice County.
There is a very large number of cases
pending in the Rice County courts.
At some point, those cases are going to resolve
and they will come to Community Corrections.
So when there is a slowdown in the court system,
eventually those floodgates open and they come to us.
And we've seen that in the past, where all of the sudden
our caseloads just, we get a huge wave of work.
And so we have to really be careful in looking
at forecasting what our workload looks like.
In Community Corrections, our caseloads really
are a reflection of crime rates 12 months ago,
because oftentimes it takes at least 12 months for a case
to make its way through the entire court system
and come to us on the tail-end of supervision.
There are three places where we provide service
and Community Corrections that are
not mandated by state statute.
One is in diversion for youth and our pre-charge adult
diversion program.
Diversion is a function of the county attorney's office.
We provide supervision for individuals
on diversion supervision.
In the adult world, we have a grant that funds a quarter time
probation officer position.
That is the one that provides supervision and screening
to the PCAD program.
In juvenile diversion, that is provided
by our juvenile probation officers.
A second place that we do not have
a state mandate to provide for services
is pretrial supervision.
We do have a fairly robust intake
and pretrial services unit.
We have brought them before you in the past
to talk about what pretrial services
look like in Rice County.
A challenge to just saying, "well, that's not mandated,
so we're not going to provide that" is,
there are a fair number of people that are a high risk
for either further criminal behavior, victim violations,
substance abuse, or flight risk that are
placed on supervision with us.
And by providing pretrial supervision,
we create an increased safety for our communities
and our victims pending those court cases, especially
when we know that some of those cases
may take 12 months to resolve.
That's a very long time for someone
who has risk in the community to maintain pro-social behavior
and avoid violations or contact with their victim
without any interventions.
The third place that we are not mandated to provide service
is in our specialty courts.
Both of our specialty courts, Drug Treatment and Mental Health
Court, receive outside funding from the state judicial branch.
Mental Health Court, which we were very excited to launch just
about six weeks ago, at this time,
will be fully funded by the amount we receive
through the judicial branch, because we have not filled
that program to capacity, and we are
not really knowing what the ultimate costs of that will be.
Having the funding for Mental Health Court
has helped offset our Drug Treatment Court costs.
In the past, we've looked at the ratio
of funding for Drug Treatment Court
through the state and the county.
There is a 30% minimum that we are required to meet,
in some form, whether that's through cash investment, staff
investment, in-kind from our partners,
it does not have to be 30% in terms of cash money
investment in that program.
But by splitting the specialty courts across the one
coordinator we have, because there's capacity
for both programs, half of the salary and benefits
for the coordinator from Drug Treatment Court
are now attributed to Mental Health Court.
So that has helped us increase the state's ratio of what
they're paying in the Drug Treatment Court
in our budget looking ahead to 2027.
So those are our non-mandated services
and the negative challenges to our CCA subsidy.
On a much more positive front, as soon as just late last week,
we were notified that two of our two federal grants that were
expiring on September 30th of this year,
both have been given a no cost extension to continue to provide
the services in those grants and utilize
the remaining funds for those.
One is our fiscal year '22 co-sub grant.
This is actually our fifth year with that grant.
It originated as a three-year grant.
So this is our second and final extension that we
will receive in that program.
The majority of the funding in that program
benefits the PCAD, the Pre-Charge Adult Diversion.
So it helps support staff in our department.
Heavily supports activities in the community
for pre-treatment beds and law enforcement training
and costs associated with that.
So our law enforcement partners in the community
benefit from that grant as well.
The other grant that was extended
is the Second Chance Smart Supervision grant.
That grant provides enhancements on supervision
to help remove barriers to individual success
on supervision.
So provisions of that help with transportation
to get people to court their drug testing appointments
with their probation officers.
To their cog skills programs, it helps
support training for our staff in
those cognitive interventions.
So it is a shift in cost from our department budget
into the grant budget.
We also have been able to offset costs
associated with electronic alcohol monitoring
on a pre-trial basis.
It's one of the larger expenses we have with pretrial is helping
fund alcohol monitoring in the community,
which is required by statute.
So in that aspect, that portion of pretrial supervision
is a mandate, but it's not a mandated cost for us.
It's a mandated cost for individuals
who are charged with DWI.
Unfortunately, because of the long time it takes to get
through the court system, some people have been on alcohol
monitors for nine months, 12 months while they're waiting
for their case to resolve, and many individuals cannot
afford to pay for that monitoring in lieu
of bail or incarceration.
And that grant has helped offset that and increase public safety
while minimizing continued alcohol
violations in that population.
So the final one that I would add
is a positive in terms of revenue
from the outside sources, is the Crisis Response grant, which
this board just accepted a couple of meetings ago,
that will fund the Compass coordinator
and the Compass program.
Rick spoke about that in his opening remarks
about this presentation.
Just like Social Service divisions,
our juvenile out-of-home placements, they ebb and flow.
Again, it's a place where Community
Corrections pays the bill for detention
and court-ordered placements.
We oftentimes have very little input on the front-end,
particularly with detention placements.
Just like Social Services, we've seen the number of placements
actually decrease, but our costs have ballooned and increased.
We are at budget for 2026.
But as Chris mentioned, your one placement away from suddenly
being over budget because you really
don't have a lot of control over some of those things.
The courts issue placements, the facilities set their per diems.
We saw a huge increase in daily per diem rates
about two years ago.
A lot of shelter facilities, secure facilities all
raised their rates in an incredible way.
That had a very negative impact on that budget.
So far this year, we have had 15 juveniles who have
been in some form of placement.
That could be one day in detention
after an arrest from the police, and they're
released the next day, to I think our longest
has been in placement most of the year,
and that is in a residential sex offender treatment program.
So there's a wide variance in the placements that we've had.
There's been a total of 30 out of home placements.
Just over a third of those were law
enforcement-initiated detention for a new arrest.
So just to give a little picture about how that looks.
Looking forward to '27, we are not looking to raise the budget
for our out-of-home placements.
We are doing very good casework in our juvenile unit,
working very closely with our Social Service partners
through both family preservation and through casework,
to try to provide wraparound services to youth
and their families in an effort to avoid placements where we can
and keep kids at home with their families in the community,
if it is safe for them to be there,
both for them and for their families.
The last piece I would share from Community Corrections.
Again, it mirrors what we are seeing in the other divisions.
We are always heavily focused on staff retention.
As you know, we have invested a great deal in training
and staff development.
That has enabled us to have multiple staff in our department
who are trainers of curriculum and training requirements
that we are required to have in probation,
but we are able to train in-house
because of the time and training that we've invested.
We have leveraged free opportunities
through the National Institute of Corrections in many cases,
where we have been able to have our staff trained, at no cost
to the county, trained at the federal level,
or trained to be trainers and bring that back and train
the rest of our staff.
And so that has been a place where we've
been able to be extremely efficient with training
dollars and staff time for travel
and things of that nature.
We do have three individuals who are on family leave.
So again, as Megan mentioned, when you have three people
out in a small unit, that does tend then
to bring on a lot of extra work and burden
to the other staff, which can be overwhelming.
Everyone has really banded together
and worked very, very hard.
We have incredible staff at Community Corrections.
They operate as a team, they support each other,
and they are making sure that the excellent service
that people expect from our department has continued,
and nothing has lapsed in the absence of their three partners.
So with that, thank you for listening and attention.
And I would open up to any questions
that you have about Community Corrections.
CHARLIE PETERS: Questions?
Comments, Commissioners?
[LAUGHTER]
ANGELA: I gave you all the information.
No questions, right?
GERRY HOISINGTON: Well, thank you for what you do.
You're a very important part of our county government.
And a couple things you said caught my attention.
And I think I was aware of it, but the increased
needs that you've seen over the last several years,
or is this related to the COVID thing?
I mean, and what kind of percentage are we talking about?
ANGELA: I think, yes, to all of that.
I mean, I think we definitely saw an impact from COVID,
but it was coming from multiple directions.
So I think COVID and isolation is never--
I mean, COVID's not good for anybody,
but isolation in a group of humans that
are basically hardwired to be connected to other people
was very hard.
It was very hard, especially for people who already
had underlying mental health.
You now have telehealth, which is wonderful and convenient.
But in terms of somebody working through therapy,
it may not be the best avenue for someone
who needs that ongoing support.
I think at the same time as we saw people having
these ballooning needs, we saw shrinking resources,
we saw less availability of providers,
and we're still dealing with that.
Someone who needs a new psychiatrist,
for example, may have a 60 to 90-day wait period.
If you're in a mental health crisis,
two to three months down the road, that is a long time.
Crisis ebbs and flows, but the things that happen as collateral
from that crisis, people who need intervention
are not necessarily going to be better 90 days from now.
So I think that is a significant challenge.
The other challenge that we see that kind of compounds
is that individuals who have severe and persistent
mental health, they may not be well in maybe making choices
in those crisis that then lead them to be involved with law
enforcement, for example.
Then they may come to the court system
and we are ordering a Rule 20 competency evaluation
based on their mental health.
We've seen numbers vastly increase there as well.
But that is a long process as well.
And in the meantime, that person's criminal case
is suspended.
But if their behavior, there's no interventions there,
new behaviors are occurring.
So now you come back to court later, whether you're competent
or not, and you have multiple offenses before the court
that need to be addressed.
Those multiple offenses have had an impact on communities,
families, law enforcement, may have new victims.
I mean, it's a kind of a huge snowball,
if I could describe it that way.
And so I think it's very important for us
to be aware of the needs of the individuals
that we're working with.
We are working with people at Corrections
that this is not a situation where people are coming
and then they have a consequence and they move on.
We're not in a position like that at this time.
Some people still respond very well to that.
People with multiple issues and challenges
need multiple service interventions.
And that's why some of the services that we provide
in partnership with other agencies within the county,
with our community partners, becomes incredibly important,
because having that streamlined helps mitigate
those challenges for people.
I don't know if that answers your question, Gerry,
but it's the picture we're looking at.
GERRY HOISINGTON: Well, and you said, your caseload is down,
but your workload is up.
ANGELA: Yes.
GERRY HOISINGTON: Yeah.
It seems like a vicious circle we're in.
ANGELA: It is challenging.
I think Rice County enjoys extremely good collaboration
across the departments in the county,
but also with our community partners.
I think that there is a genuine collaboration that occurs
that benefits the individuals we serve
and our communities in a really positive way.
CHARLIE PETERS: Any other?
JIM PURFEERST: Yeah, I've got a question here.
You're the second person out of Social Services
that I've talked about paid and family leave, people being out.
Are you kind of running at that consistent number of a couple
employees out all the time?
ANGELA: We have had three probation officers out
consistently since December and one in our support staff
that is out intermittently.
And much like Social Services, it's for positive life events.
We had a small baby boom at Community Corrections.
And so we have people that are out on parent leave
enjoying the birth of their children
and building new families.
And so it's a very positive thing,
but it's also very challenging when you have a small division.
We have 20 probation officers and three of them are on leave.
So three caseloads, that's a lot of people on supervision
that then divvy up into other caseloads
and create extra work for others.
And so, yes, we're feeling that impact.
And we are looking very forward to having our staff come back.
JIM PURFEERST: Come back.
Yes.
ANGELA: Yes.
JIM PURFEERST: Is that kind of constant through all
the departments there?
FEMALE SPEAKER: Yes.
JIM PURFEERST: OK.
Thank you.
CHARLIE PETERS: Well, I thank you, and all four
of these departments, whether mandated or not mandated,
are very important.
And it's an opportune time right now, with the levies coming up,
that we know how your departments are operating
and what's needed.
So, thanks.
I believe that's it for departments, right?
Or do we got?
ANGELA: Thank you, Commissioners.
CHARLIE PETERS: Rick's going to wrap it up.
RICK: Thank you.
There's just one last slide.
A lot of this has been discussed earlier.
So it's not on here, but just wanted
to mention on behalf of all of us,
thank you again for all of your support,
especially, for example, with the grant funding.
That helps us put in so many services that
are preventative and proactive, and that has made a big impact
on public safety and improving the quality of life
here in the county.
So, thank you.
CHARLIE PETERS: Thank you.
With that, Administration, Sarah.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Yes.
I have the consent agenda with the extra time, overtime report.
Payment of bills and personnel appointments.
So recommending approval.
STEVE UNDERDAHL: To approve.
JIM PURFEERST: Second.
CHARLIE PETERS: Motion by Commissioner Underdahl,
second by Commissioner Purfeerst for approval
of the consent agenda.
Any discussion?
Seeing none, all those in favor say, "aye."
ALL: Aye.
CHARLIE PETERS: Opposed, same sign.
Consent agenda approved.
GALEN MALECHA: Motion to adjourn.
STEVE UNDERDAHL: Second.
CHARLIE PETERS: Motion by Commissioner
Malecha, second by Commissioner Underdahl for adjournment.
Any discussion?
Seeing none, all those in favor of adjournment, say "aye."
ALL: Aye.
CHARLIE PETERS: Meeting adjourned.
Do we want to take a quick five minutes?
GALEN MALECHA: Sure.
CHARLIE PETERS: Please.
COMPUTER: Recording stopped.