It is four o'clock. I'll call this meeting to order. We have an agenda before us. And so we've got today's agenda. You've had to welcome everybody that's here. You take a moment to look at it. And I would entertain a motion to accept the agenda. Mr. Chair, yes, sir. As a brief point of order, I know you have a new board member. Is she human's home? Yes, sir. Very good. Yes, sir. I will sit here and shut up, sir. No, sir. Thank you, sir. Keep us in line. Thank you, sir. Sir, move on, your dear. Could it be a second? second. Thank you. I'll in favor. I'm the 12th St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St. St.'m going to do a good deal. Could it be a second? Thank you. All in favor, aye? Aye. The polls same sign. Ginda is accepted. Once again, we do have a new board member, and we'll get to that in just a few minutes. We have two items that's before the adoption of the minutes. We did have a quorum on February the 19th. Those minutes have already been sent out. Unfortunately, on March the 19th, we did not have a quorum, but we did have discussion meeting that was Director Hunt. Correct me. Wasn't that budget discussion on the 19th? It was. Okay. So, and I'm pretty sure all of those minutes have been sent out also. So, hope that all of our current board members, minus Miss Pellegrini, has had a chance to look at that. And if so, I will entertain a motion to adopt the minutes that have been previously sent out. For February of the 19th and March the 19th. I didn't think March 19th thought I could. Did we send them up? Okay. I didn't see them either. But I was a year old at 19th. No, you wasn't here. You wasn't here. And we couldn't adopt anything or do any action because we did not have a problem. But before this meeting, have already been sent out. So we'll take it one at a time. February 19th, which we would have voted on on the March 19th, I'll entertain a motion to accept February 19th minutes that have been previously sent out. I make a motion that weeks out. We're 19 minutes. The bill's second on that. Second. All in favor, aye. Aye. Opposed same sign. All right. Is it my understanding with the board members that we have not had a chance to review March the 19th minutes. Correct but also I know I'm that weird person who won't vote on minutes for a meeting where I wasn't present. We will yes sir. Yes sir. It would be it will still be appropriate even for a board member who was not president of media. He always does. It is still appropriate to vote on it. In fact, I would recommend an upper down vote on the way. Yes, thank you, sir. I just always feel weird voting to say yes or no to something where I wasn't there. It seems odd and it seems contrary but it is actually correct to do so. Okay. The board makes the decision not the individual. I will share with the board members that we're not present. Everything was conducted as we've always conducted meetings, discussion. I will tell you this, even though I was here by myself, that was a long meeting because I asked a whole lot of questions. And I was only one here and so But those minutes have been sent out to the board members once again I will entertain a motion to accept the minutes from March the 19th Would there be a second all in favor? I Would there be opposed same sign? I would say aye because I trust your judgment. In reference to you and your judgment. Yes, ma'am. I've looked over, they heart, you know, say the men is fat. Are there any public comments? No public comments. All right, we're at the point. We have a new board member who is Ms Sydney Pellagrini. She is the appointee of the county commissioners. Unfortunately, our last county commissioners appointee, he made it to one meeting, found out that life be lifeen. be laughing so to speak. He wanted to further some stuff in his education and he knew this would take away from his time and his education at what he wanted to do. So he resigned. Ms. Pelagrini had sent her application in back in December and it came back before the County Commissioners and they voted her in this past meeting so we welcomed her she was sworn in just a little bit ago before this meeting started would you like to share anything about yourself ma'am? Sure I'm a peer support specialist in Cleveland County I've worked in Rutherford County for about two and a half years also was a garden of the Lydam I step down to be on this board, but I'll be a guardian of the Lydam and Cleveland County soon, instead of Rutherford County. I'm an individual who had several involvements with departmental social services before the ages of 18. So I'm very passionate about DSS. I never thought that I would be on the board for DSS. So I'm very eager to be somebody that has a voice, a huge advocate. I'm also on the board of directors for NAMI, I chair the young adults. So I really enjoyed being a young adult and being passionate about that. And in school as well, for human services, hopefully to become a clinical mental health counselor. So I am in recovery myself, that's what a peer support is. So I'm very honored to be here. Yeah, and be the voice for people who would like to be. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, man. We're happy to have you. Thank you. Just to know, coming up in June, our wonderful esteemed vice chair, Ms. Georgia Steele, unfortunately, will be rotating off, but not today. She's with us for several more meetings. So if there's someone that you know of that might be a good candidate to join the DSS board, please ask them to put their applications in. But we still have Ms until that time. We will now turn to Director Hunt for this personnel report. All right, so I'm going to ask you to go to your booklets and go to the personnel report. It's stated as of 3.30.25 and just hold that spot because before we do that we want to introduce who we have in the room and so Susan. Hello. I present to you Heather Flatcher. She started with us a week and a half ago on April 7th. She's been in the management property management business. So she's been there a week and a half doing very well. Very nice to have her. Second we have Stephanie. She started with us this past Monday Monday. She's been with us for three days now. Oh, what? She comes from the insurance banking industry, insurance financial. And can you tell the board the positions that you have now? I'm in the interest. And I'm in the family children's making. Wonderful. So thank you. Any questions for our new staff? Welcome,able. Welcome. Welcome,able. Welcome,able. Welcome,able. Welcome,able. Welcome,able. Welcome,able. Welcome,able. Welcome,able. Welcome,able. Welcome,able. Welcome,able. Yes. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. We do this as part of our routine and so on that. Or if we know who you are and you get to see who the board is, because they're definitely the foundation of the work that we do. So we're going to continue on and you have a choice to make. You can stay here and watch what we do, or you can decide if you want to go back to the office. You've just gone in, so whatever you want to do is hand me up to you. All right. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're like, you're going to leave back in the studio. You're like, you're going to leave back in the studio. I'm going to leave back in the studio. You're like, you're going to leave back in the studio. I can go back to the studio. You're like, you're going to leave back in the studio. I can go back to the studio. You're like, you're going to leave back in the studio. It's really okay. Thank you guys. All right, so the personnel report I'm gonna ask that the board review the personnel report It's going to be on We've on one two three four pages. And just let us know if you have any questions. Director, would you give a brief synopsis of the pages that she's looking at. So Miss Pellet Green, you have an understanding. Thank you. And suddenly I will. Thank you so much for reminding me of that. And so what the personnel report is is I want you to look at the employee number. Those are the employees who are working with us. And each month we just take a review and we look at the data and we find out who's been working over time. What is the comp time? It gives us an opportunity to see what's going on how we can manage that and of course since you know a little bit about the system Anytime that there's there's social workers working over There's some things going on either the caseloads are high. There's a lot of children out of the county. So it's very, very important for us to make sure that we are managing that the best that we can. Also, we are responsible to the county and the county budget. And so as director, my job is to manage that budget. So let's just say we're looking at one. Do you see four, two, eight, six? They have almost 100 hours in come time. Anytime that we get up that high, we're asking questions. We're talking about it, and we're trying to figure out what's going on. With this particular person, they have children out of the county. And so they are driving several hours and several hours back. And so sometimes there's, we can't say no to the to the comp time at that point. But let's just say that this person was to leave tomorrow, then that hits the budget, because you have to pay them out. So everything that you're looking at is really in truly managing the county, managing the budget, and managing the best resource we have, which are social workers and our workers. So that's what that is. And as you will look down here, you see administration. Those are not those, that's why you don't see a whole lot there because administration those are our support staff, our process and assistance and people like look behind you that's Kim but we do have one that has time we normally don't have a lot of that but but this is one person that needed to do some additional things for the agency. And then what we do is we, if you look kind of sort of like middle page, it has current balance, power balance, and the difference. We try to make sure that you can see what it was last time, and then what the balance is at this time and what the difference is. So if you have any additional questions, you let us know. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. The good thing about this one, Sydney, is that you see the differences when you see the minuses, that means that we're doing better on the count time. So that's plus. Also Sydney let me have you go to the last page where it has number three at the bottom. It's also important for us to let the board know how many new hires we have, how many resignations and retirees we have. If we have any people transferring within the agencies, if we have to terminate someone, and how many vacant positions that we have. And as you can see, what eyes wide open, social, IAT, that's child protective services. Five positions have been there. And we've been kind of talking about this for a while how difficult it is to find such a workers who want to do child protective services and it's a little difficult because you're knocking on doors and it's scary, it's dangerous. So those positions stay open more and people leave more positions. Any more questions from the agency? Process, following, using the vacancies in there. Yes. We're doing all we can do. We haven't challenges with any of those positions. We are doing so much better because we actually vitred out. So now we're using NDEED. We're not using NDEED before. And it has made a huge difference. What difference would you say? I mean, I have both my positions but it's not five anymore. It's four. It's three. I'm sorry. And then we got one that started May 1st. I got an interview tomorrow and then so hopefully they'll be getting if everything goes good so T total difference with indeed amazing I still have a social or super by association up and but It's it's been good Yeah, and need different great. It made the biggest difference the applications and the interviews that Tiffany's discussing came through Indeed. They've been good at that. We just kind of wonder why we're not using Indeed. And so we put Kayla on it and so now we're using Indeed and it is truly working. It's hard to decently make your counties and bigger tax bases. Uh, yes. They can pay higher salaries. They can pay higher salaries. Um, yeah, that's where the bandwagon for that. Yeah, we got one and we thought what gonna get when we got it was like a huge win. We was like, you know, I was like, I was like, okay. So we interviewed him. and I said now what's gonna happen once we tell what the salary is because it's 10,000 more in another county, but they chose us because they word him out about the department and just felt when they came for interview that the atmosphere was a good atmosphere. So, yep, yep. So I had to that? Sure. We have a case worker who gave her a resignation. She worked at Cheers, noticed. And she went to another county as a case worker. She worked there until launch. She called her supervisor here and said, I hate it here. Can I come back? She worked until launch. She still launched. She worked the full day, but she called it lunch. And it took us until that afternoon to get through to our HR to make sure you have it. We called Deborah, and I was like Deborah, and you help us. And she just reversed it just that quickly because we had it done within a day. Then you can ride on a bike or something. And was not dry. It was all because of the environment in our agency. And we strive to keep our environment as. So she really was shocked. We had a young church member that went to Mecklenburg County when she was teaching in Pope. A warm money, it was a rude awakening. Yes, I agree. A rude way. Yes, and that that environment is the very same. Money that made me. She was going to be making more money in the Southern County, too. And also, she moved as well as she chose to live. So she moved 45 minutes away from here and we said, well, you know, you're going to have to make that drive. And she told us. So I'll drive 45 minutes there and 45 minutes back every day. Okay, don't matter. Sometimes you have to venture outside to understand what's good here. And you have the questions of... I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. minutes were sent out on 321 at 924 am. Just for, okay, should need to go back, you wanna see that. And the reason why I was here just, I'm glad. You did it. But the original came out of March the 21st at 924 AM. We will now look at Miss, look to Miss Price for the budget discussion. Okay. For Miss Pelagrini, our budget is a complex one. We have a lot of different funding streams that come from Bedron State Funds. We have four different sections for our budget program revenues, administrative revenues, program expenses and administrative expenses. The programs, of course, just what they say they are programs, whether that be Leap, CF, F&S, all the programs that we do administrative, of course, is your salaries, your power bill, or that tough thing for all your administrative side. So as I go through, you'll see I'll say administrative and programs. So it's both. So we're starting out on the first page. It shows all of our revenues. Second page is part of our revenues. The all of the first page and part of the second page are the administrative expenses. So on page two, the highlighted section there shows the contribution from General Fund for administrative expenses. That contribution is the county portion. That's what the county has to fund for our budget. We don't get any funding, any revenue back from that portion. So you'll see your contribution from General Fund for your administrative expenses is at 64.5% at the end. We should be 75% right now now. So for administrative expenses, we're 10.47 under budget for our administrative aside. Then going down, all that revenue is your program revenue. On page two, page three is all programs. All those are the revenues that we're expecting. Page four, your contribution from general funds for your programs is at 100 at 4.81%. So we are 29.81% over budget for our program side. And then just flip to the very back. Well actually, yeah. Very back page. Your total budget is at 69.87%, which is 5.15% under budget. So, we're under budget for our total budget. So, we're under at 5%. So, do you have a page flip? Yeah, page 10. Thank you. 10. Thank you. You missed? Yep, very nice page. I don't think I highlighted it, but I normally I'll highlight that last page. But anyway, we're at 69.87%, which is we should be at 75%. It was nine months ended. So we are a total budget, 5.15 under budget. Going on page five starts your administrative expenses. Going back to page five. All of the highlighted lines are over budget for the current year. In your budget discussion, I'll tell you I have listed why they're over budget and what the details are. All of our lines have been over budget. They were over budget last month. There's no new administrative expenses that are over budget this month. I don't know if you want to just, you can just read through that. If you have any questions for me, you can, you know, ask me. When some things, you know, the reason we might be over budget is there's one invoice in that line and we pay that one invoice in July, so that throws us over budget all year long. There's other things that factor in, like that salaries overtime, well we didn't budget any overtime salaries in that line, but we've had sitting with children that workers have done and other things that have paid overtime for like our de-snap or disaster programs that we had to do. So it's come out of that, but what we'll do is we'll move money out of that regular salaries line to cover that overreach. So there's money that we can move around to cover overages during the year. Page six are the rest of the administrative expenses. All those lines were over last month. There's not any new lines that weren't over. And then page seven starts our programs. And so you'll see that food stamps, EBT is over a hundred and six percent. Our state, the reason our budget is over for programs mostly is if you look at state foster care, kinship foster care, and for foster care. We've already spent 155% of our budget on state foster care and 99% of our budget on for e foster care. So our foster care numbers are really high right now. We have 190 for mod or is that number? I don't know why. I don't know what it means. I think it's hard to make. I think it's something to do. I don't know what. I think it's hard to make. I think it's going to be one of the two. Yeah. So we're really high in foster care and that's why I show it over budget. As far as total budget, we're still under, but our programs are way over. Any questions anybody has. Like I said, there's no lines over this month that were not over last month. All of the same lines were over. On page nine, that disaster emergency rental, Miss Roach, our finance director, did a budget amendment. We received additional funds in that emergency rental. We're expecting more funds in that additional 15,000. We received, we've got this 74, initially, we received 50,000, another deposit and another 23. We're expecting additional 15. So we're actually, even though it shows we're over budget in that line, we've gotten the funds and they do they'll do a budget amendment and put that in Anybody have any questions for me anything that Why is it so low 9.9c. Where are you? Page 7. Page 7. Yeah, we just are not having the clients come in and request any funding. And you have to work to get those services. Yeah. The case for that is really, really. Yeah. We've got 72 households, I think think in that program and it's not a program that a lot of people wants to comply with the required plan. You have to work and you have to get $236 a month when you have to work 20 hours a week. Some of us are other options. They have children. You have to have children in the house under 18. A lot of people just prefer going work. Yeah. And I happen to deal with bringing this in and this one in and that one in. If all they're going to get is $236 so they just rather. That's per month. That's per month. And that's where Household of Two. If it's only a child getting the name, it's $181 a month. So it helps people who really need it. But there are a lot of people out there that they're like, well, for having to have this case worker and then have to submit to my checkstubs and the criteria. Let me just go to work and not bother with it. So even if they don't work on their other services, they get like the booth stamps and Medicaid and all that. They will still be eligible for that. You don't have to apply for this. Right, right. To be able to get the other programs. Yeah, so I was thinking some might not just, they're not working, but. Yeah, and then some are going to get more if they just go to work. Yeah. The program is designed to foster and teach somebody that does not have work experience, maybe generational. It doesn't have work experience that you don't know that you have to show up when you have a job or know how to dress or know how to present. You have to feel more at first program. Yes. You did a lot of OJT. Yes. When I first started here 14 years ago, the case I was about 180 cases. So I was just dwindling down about 72 now. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you, Ms. Price. We'll come back to the work to help in the service report. Alrighty. And Ms. Sydney, for you, this is service reporting. You can pull that up a little bit. It's stated for March because of course it will enable. We're going to be looking at March numbers. And for this one we look at February and March and we compare it to the year prior. These are all of our services. We have adult services. Children services, child support, Medicaid transportation, program integrity, economic services, food assistance, Medicaid workforce, subsidized childcare, crisis, crisis intervention, which you're going to have people call SIP, LIAP, and disaster assistance. And what we do is we always look at, again, we're always reviewing data. That's what we do because that's how we decide on what we need to do and what's going on and what we need to improve or if we need any extra money from our budget or from the state or from the federal government or from the county. So if you will just review those areas and if anything and just kind of compare from last month to this month, and then compare to the year prior, and let us know if you have any questions. I'm going to go a report from the community on the dope protective services. You just make an intake call. You just basically call our number and they'll get you to the correct person. Just one phone call. We have, we're 24-7. Like this question in this, maybe for something else, had a citizen complaining. They were the one that got called on that they were in the wrong. Is there a process, I know about the intake, is there a process to let the person that's been accused, know the status of the case that's been looked at against him. He said he's not heard anything from DSS. Okay, you'll have to get me just a little bit more. So there was a, it was against, and don't pour it, or against him. As a parent. Or as a caretaker. As a caretaker, there's a child in his home that he was accused of abusing or whatever. He said he went through the whole process and he's not heard anything about it. And I'll tell you what I told him to call you or email you. And I told him I says, I'll try to find that answer out for you. Is there, do you let the person that's accused know, okay, this case is closed. I know the person that makes the report gets a letter paid, asks for it back. But what about the person that's been accused? The way that that works, whoever that, that we call them a perpetrator of the abuse, they're part of it. They're part of that. So they should know when the case is closed, because you're having interviews with this person. So they should know they're part of the process. So there is a case decision letter that goes out to the parties involved. Is it possible? Ball got dropped and he didn't get notified? No, what do you think? Clear there? I just need to know. I mean, I need more information after this. I will have him recontact because he pulled me to the side and asked me, I'll try to find that answer. Why is it open or is it closed or? And that's the thing that he's worried about because he's trying to look at a position of employment and he didn't want his over his head. And I'm like, I know what happens if I call the report and I get a letter back if I can question him. But I just wasn't sure about when you're on the other side of the court. Right. I'm sure. Yeah, because he's part of it. He's what they consider the perpetrator of the case. So yeah. I don't know if I have that email or not, but I would, yeah, I don't know if I have that email or not, but I would yeah, I'm just asking the colonel to send her over to Tipety. Yeah, I just wouldn't say his name out loud. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we wouldn't do that. We would richer. Oh man. Question about the adult protective services again. Would the person making the referral have to give their name for adult services? No you can remain anonymous you call on the children services report and you want to remain anonymous but your name is on the all I need, we have to let you know that we have to put that down. Okay. Any other questions about the service report? Do you have any questions? Okay. Oh yeah. What do you say, can I give it down? You can. Yeah, it's what we call the unconscious incompetence. You don't know what you don't know yet. Give you a couple months and you'll have plenty, I'm sure. Thank you, Deborah, for the time. You're trying to miss Dodd for program updates on the social work. And me and Ms. Cindy, we met and sat down and talked before. So she knows what I do. And she knows what it looks like to turn her services as she's the guardian angel. And I also do adult services. So I don't have a lot of updates besides, you know, we are getting some good qualified applicants and excited about that. I want to remind everybody that we do have the pinwheel ceremony tomorrow at DSS at two o'clock. If you could come out and wear your boot and join us in for child abuse prevention months. And so pretty much that's all. You know, I got adult services supervisor and new in place as the one that Lori retired. So, you know, just a lot of learning, training, and moving on. We are taking a lot of kids in custody. We just took five kids on here today. So it is different a lot going on right now. Do you have more folks to homes to the man? Why is the number so low in this county? Is it just no applicants or is the process difficult? Or not enough people know about the process for foster homes? Yes, it's just, you know, they've been recruiting. Yeah, right. We've definitely been recruiting. And we did get a few people to respond to our little QR code. So we have definitely been trying. We have an R-pop in the park, which Dee gonna talk about that in her notes. So on May the 3rd, so we definitely want, try to give you about note the process, is it any different than what it be? It's just giving people a new one. I mean, we know it's hard. We know that you're taking a step to take care of kids. It's been a lot of trauma and a lot of stuff. So we do think that some of it would be because of drug babies more emotional problems that kids have. I mean, definitely because we're seeing behaviors at a very early age now. Yeah. So it's just, it's different. And so I know, I mean, when I get money to do it, but it's not a lot, it's for fun here right now. So I mean, it could be a whole list of things that's to all people, she's not to foster. You have a lot of grandparents taking care of their kids, so might not foster because they've already taken care of grandparents or raised any grandkids. I think COVID gave us a hit. People just didn't want anybody new in their house because they may be bringing COVID in. So I think we took a hit then. However, it's like anything else when you have limited resources you have to get creative. So that's what we're trying to do. I did bring this up to the board, but our county has been blessed with an awesome opportunity. One of four selected to receive a grant from Duke University to actually study our Boscow Care system as it relates to recruitment, retention and and foster parents. So we had that meeting on Monday and they will, they're just in an email about next steps. And what's going to happen is that the researchers from Duke will spend time in our agency. They're going to talk with, probably you guys to but they're gonna talk with everyone in the agency every social worker and every foster parent and they're gonna determine what can we do in our county to get the number of foster homes up. So that's what this grant is all about and we're very excited about it. It's Brotherhood County, Clay County, Jackson County, and Rowan County, those four. So we're very excited about that. I always say you all know Emily Wood with those eight coats. So she is now charging the churches. She is, you know, calling the churches. Let them know that it's know, to do the work. And so she's going to different churches, but she's presenting. So she is also working hard in the community for us. So two years ago, in 2023, we developed the R-Pop, the Resource Parent Outreach Program, and and so Tiffany take it away. And so what that is is we're in the community, you know, we are, we recognize our current foster parents and you know we have, well that's what the R-Pop and the Park will be about is you know recognizing them and thinking them for the things that they do as well as kitchens and temporary safety providers. And so what we do is we go out and we promote and let them know, you know, we hand out promotional items and let them know what we do, what it looks like to be a foster parent, a resource parent. Even if they don't wanna go through the foster piece, at least be in a kinship. So that has been, like so we've been out in the community, We've got a few hits on it, but just to recognize them and to do outreach in the community and be present and just to make people aware. And so the extension of that is the OP, the outreach empirical research has determined that when foster parents tell other foster parents they're more likely to do it than when social work is to have foster parents because in the whole scheme of things sometimes social workers don't do what we're supposed to we don't call the resource parents like we're supposed to we don't follow up like we're supposed to and what happens is that when you get that type of feedback that they're telling this person about, like you don't want to be a foster parent there, they don't call you back. When the child's cutting up, they won't come. That's research. They talk about that on Monday, but I mean, I've known that. But when you can get other foster parents who are doing well, who can talk about how great it is to be a foster parent, that's what drives more people to want to be foster parents. They can do it better than we can. So that's the extension that's where the old comes from, having each foster parent go out into the community, go into the church, their church, and say hey I'm Pam Price and I'm foster parent and this is how great it is and this how great brother of my family is. So that's that's what we're working toward. And hopefully we can make the happen. We're not quite there yet. We're still doing the part where we're there, we're out there. But we've got to get it to the point where we've got other people going out and saying that we can't do this work ourselves. It's too much. We have to get the foster parents doing the force. I'm part of you. So, do not interrupt your question. Yes sir. When we found out that our workers aren't doing what they're supposed to do... Yes. ...dragging families on keeping cases in court too long... Yes. ...that we possibly have some cases that are out of compliance that should have made a decision how we fix in those issues. I'm going to put that over to Tiffany because we've had the conversations about Tiffany, you want to answer that? So we are working on our court processes and it's some things that you know when it's in a court you know the judges have their say in it as well but you know we're going to work on we're definitely working on w looking at cases that's in the in-home phase which is like in-home services where it's not kids and foster care. Just saying is all we had a point after two, three months we need to be staffing cases looking at seeing if it's in progress and if it's not in progress then we need to be moving forward with custody. So and then it'll start that foster care part of it. So just bring it up our classes. Give yourself the credit for, we talked about the court process and I know it's in place, but because I saw it, the court process that you put in place that we talked about, mom, that a blank. Okay, well you sent it to me. I know, I was the opening I've seen you took that back. So, so, so we talked about how we could make sure that cases were not dragging on. Oh, yeah. Which is basically staffing, making sure that, you know, we are processing cases and getting close out when they're trying to close out. So, so now, rather than, okay, come on, it's, you know, I said, make it structured. Make it structured. This is what happens. These are the players who need to come. This is what time it starts. This is who needs to be there. And always have an agenda. You have an agenda, you know, you can make this process happen and it could be more structured So those are some of the things the processes that that are in place right now, which the other piece of it is We are developing Policies and I know you're doing this, but so we so we are now developing internal processes Which we're calling them in turn procedures. We've started this you guys have seen the emails. They all know That is an effort to make sure that we're making things lean that we're not carrying things over that we're going policies and that we're making sure that families are treated with dignity and respect and that means that we're doing things the way that we should, that we're not dragging things out. It's hard to be part of a system. Nobody wants to be part of the system, but it is necessary. So we can get people in there and do the work and then close the case. That's what we're supposed to do. That's why every policy that you will read has a timeline, even foster care, within a year. It has a timeline. It may not always make it but there should be some good justification. In home services it has a timeline of six months. Secret assessment has a timeline of 45 days. They all have timelines. Max is so with those timelines we're making sure in the policies and procedures there's something in place that when the workers are not following that timeline. There's some... Yes. Where you have the director step back up. Yes. Because as we... Yes. If we have a worker leave, we want them to come back. We want Rutherford County DSS to be that golden child and we don't want to hear bad stuff about it or folks lose confidence in us in DSS. Right. What we are doing is, and of course I've had this conversation with Tiffany and the managers, we are pushing coaching. Once you notice something, we're not going to let this drag out anymore. We're going to coach, we're going to talk about it. It's going to be a coaching session, and they're going to walk up right up to Kayla's office, and it's going in their record. And that is happening without a shout of it out. Once that coaching session happens, and it happens again, there's a write-up. Am I correct? And the write-up is going right up to Kayla's office into their record. After that, their grounds for termination. We want to treat people right. We want to treat people with respect. But. is office into their record. After that, their grounds for termination. We want to treat people right, we want to treat people with respect, but in all honesty, you're getting paid to do this work from taxpayers' money. So we want to make sure that people are doing their jobs and that they're doing it high quality because families deserve that. So we have, I mean, we're shopping things up. I saw your hand. In the individual case loads, what type of model are you using for pool systems? You know, to prioritize and deadlines being made that kind of thing. What kind of, you know, a particular pool system you use. So basically, I mean, we, we thought we definitely policy in the mandates and there's some hiccups on the way. Well, you know, things do get out of compliance and things like that. We try to make sure we put in the legal realm of making sure that things are followed as it should be. We are always staffing cases. We are processing cases. Of course, you know, we're turnover, you know, kind of gets it can it can hurt us so we staff cases we meet about cases cases that's in court you know those are things that should be about the judge should be making decisions off of and how we should move forward and the next thing we should do is on we're making sure we're presenting all the facts because they use a pool calendar at all pool That's not your goal, tell me. Get that way back in the day. Yeah, you know what I'm going to do. Yeah, I'll let you know. You have a corner of what? That individual is managing on this day-to-day basis. We've got pool courts going on. Are they keeping up pooling cases and organized? Because if they don't have some kind of pool system. They're not organized. Some people are organized. Some people are organized. Right. We actually talked about that. So right now, a lot of the supervisors are using spreadsheets. Yeah, that's great. And those spreadsheets will show what's doing seven days. What's doing 14 days. What's doing three days. You know? You know what? Take knowledge. You know what I'm saying? So yeah, no calendar, do you know what I'm saying? So they are. But we're also holding the supervisors and managers accountable. I mean, you know, because I get held accountable. And I'll tell them, you know, I'm going to get held accountable. so you have to be able to count them as well. So everybody's held accountable and I'll tell them, you know, I'm going to get held accountable so you have to be held accountable as well. So everybody's held accountable because we have work to do. We want to do this work to where it is within the mission and values of the agency and the county. Well, we're trying. One last question on that. How does private agencies, I mean, how do they, do they work with the local county DSS? I know some people are false appearance or private companies. They said they paid more money. So is it, how does, do you know, I mean, I know you don't work with them, but how do they come about, how does that? I'm not sure if I understand your question, but if I understand your question, you're saying, can we use private companies as well? As long as they are licensed, and they're licensed through the state of North Carolina, it has to be licensed through our state. We're open. Okay. If they're licensed through the state can they get fals... they have to come through you in order to get foster care children. It depends on who they're licensed under but a person who's licensed can... you can be here in this particular county but you can actually have a child from another county. Right, come on in. Come on in your home. Right, correct. Yeah. I don't know if that makes sense or not, but if you can, if you think of it as a matter of fact. I just know some people, they said they work for private agency. And they're private agency. They pay more. They pay more. Yeah. We paid whatever the state's allotment is. I just wondered how they got the false, how they got the children. I know how the county does. Because there's a lot of private agencies out here that do private foster care because they know that it's a much needed service and other counties go through private agencies when you get to. how you would probably get foster care kids, but how do they give them from the court system? We'll send out a blast. We'll send out an email and say, hey, we have these children, this is the given descriptions, and you know what, go out to agencies. Okay. And they will let us know if they have a placement or not. Okay. And there's other agencies, there's ones that are cost-modeled rates that they pay, that they agree just like a doctor's office has rates that you agree with with an insurance company, they agree to accept these rates coming from foster care in the state. There's some of those that agree to take kids for that lower rate. Then there's others in a private that they say no we're gonna take our chances we're gonna charge this we won't agree to the state's rates. So you see what I'm saying there's a that's called that cost cost model rate basis. That's why they pay more so that private. I guess it was a big difference in those rates versus the private. And sometimes the private companies will take our rate and then they'll pad it with their rate to keep the foster parents going. And I tell you what's happening now across the state is you have some agencies. They asked, you know, Ruther County it but we just I just couldn't see it but you actually pay for a space and you pay whether that child's in that space or not but when you do get a child you've got a space but Pam and I could not see you. You used to do that year's a guy, it was just a lot of money. I just got a money, it was a lot of money. And we made need this space, we may not, but you have to pay for it. It's kind of like, daycare, you know how, whether if your child's out sick or you're going to be You're still spamming that spot. Yeah, right. They're doing the same thing now with the fostered spaces. But that's a lot. That's a lot of money. But a lot of counties are doing it which is we didn't do it. Any other questions comment, social work? Thank you Mr. Dott. We go to risk bridges economic services. Miss bridges. Miss bridges. Miss bridges. She's gone. She's gone. Oh, see I'm looking down. I stand corrected. You have to record reflect. I said the wrong name. Who would go to this sous-en-it? him. We need fix that. Thank you. We can't forget to do this. She can. She can. She can. For the disaster, disaster, anti-acidance. We have to do that, boo. I'm sorry. I said it before you, Susan. I can feel you wanted to say it. You were just being polite. I think I said it twice today. Thank you. For the disaster energy assistance, we have $29,826 left in that balance. We are thinking about the end of next week, that money will be gone. Maybe even before the end. We have had several deposits into that account. That are last deposit. We'll see. We had $450,000, $200,000, $100,000. And then one day, bam, we had 85,000 put in our, we didn't even know it was coming. We have 29,000 left on that, we think that balance is going to be huge by the end of next week, probably before the end. We are waiting on the 15,000 for disaster rental income, but we all have already got apps in place that when that money is deposited into bank account, we have apps to approve to use up that money, so that money is going to be gone. There was a bill at the North Carolina legislation to ask for $11 million more dollars for the 25 counties that was in the disaster. I spoke to the Deputy Chief today for the economic services and she said it goes up and down like a lot of times it'll be, they think it's going to go through and then turn around and it'll be denied. So she don't know where that's going to be. She has no idea where we're getting more disaster relief money at all. So we're almost out of that. The Medicaid COVID waivers, I spoke about that for the last two board meetings. The Medicaid waivers from COVID, we did get the formal written policy that the waivers will expire for cases starting July 1st. That means they have to cooperate, parents have to cooperate with child support before they would be able to receive Medicaid. They will start having to prove their income, everything, all the things that we could take their statements for. They are now going to have to start proving. Which mostly is income, their bank statements, how much resources they have. They will have to prove that before they would be eligible. That is when their case starts is due our first. But a lot of these cases, we actually started working yesterday. So the work has come along to these case workers just effective immediately. Like the cases that we started working yesterday, a start date of July 1st for the re-determinations. So we are starting that process now. I would think about 95% of the case workers, I'm just guessing that number, was not in Medicaid so they don't know the real Medicaid policy so the whole staff is going to have to be retrained. That's how the turnover is. Are you the trainer? Yeah. The supervisors are training. Okay. They started that training yesterday with the new policies, the flavors expired. That's all I have. Is it all you have, Miss Emily? Yes, it is. Any questions or comments from Miss Emily? Once again, we recognize direct to HUD for the direct reports. All right. Don't have a lot on there, only to tell you that we're excited about May the 7th at 4 o'clock PM. This has been a long time coming. This is when we will have the ribbon cutting of the house. The house is actually complete. We're in the process of printing it now. We do have, you know, we're right there at the point of the budget. Don't have a lot of money like a public penny spend. I'm just sort of see where we are before get blinds but we are very close and we're excited and we need to know if the board is going to be there with us, we have a lot of the board to be there. This is what it's all about. This is why I got the written citation. We're having someone on the office for sleeping. I won't forget that day. But this is all I think, I think, I would help trust. I think Tiffany and the social workers for all they've done, for sleeping in the office. I think Susan and David Johnson, who came to our rescue, who opened up their house in for a city, who allowed us to use that house until this house got built. Because we've had kids that would been in our office on the floor and had it not been for them. they would have been because we can't take them home. So we don't have a choice. But on May the 7th, 2025 at 4 p.m., it's efficient. We can use that. Beds are in there now. Yeah. So it's ready to go. Just want the board to know that the most interesting thing about the house is that it is going to be used for foster parents and their children so that they don't have to go back and visit in the same place where they were removed. I mean, it's just an eerie feeling, you know, to go back to the doctor's office or to, you know, it makes it a house. They get to eat dinner together, they want to. We'll have food there, they get to play outside, we have a really nice playground. That's also part of this, that they get to play on. So we're excited. Does anyone, Tiffany, you want to add to that? Thank you so much, I'm going to post. We'll find a fam. Susan, it's beautiful. I'm tired. I haven't been there. I haven't seen it at all. You have a secret. I'm not bumping in. Wow, you just want to be real shocked. I'm surprised. Yeah, I'm going to see the fam. I'm just going to see the fam. the final. Okay. Kim, you have done a lot for this house and for me to help me manage it. Would you like to say anything? I just think it's beautiful. That's wonderful for these kids. Me too. Yeah, we're all excited. I'm trying to get my tears all out before the May 7. But anyway, we're looking forward to it. And that's all I have. No, no, no. Just letting everyone know that the agencies don't well. The workers are working hard. And we're doing everything we can to try to keep them motivated. And we're holding them accountable, but we're keeping them motivated at the same time. And with that, I yield back to the board chair. Thank you, Director. Any announcements to come before the board? Question, did you connect with the terrain to get clothes? Yeah, we did. Bye. We took five children yesterday. Wow. If I'm not mistaken, Ms. Kim hit me out. The next meeting is on May the 21st. I think I'm looking at that as the third Wednesday. That correct. Yeah. That is correct. Okay. I need to let the board know I will not be in attendance on that day. I'm driving a school to Dollywood. And I'll be coming back. And by the time I get back the meeting will be over with If there's nothing else to come before the board I'll entertain them motion to adjourn No, I just want to bounce something up for you. Yes, ma'am. Let's close It's a June is her last is a June that you come off. Can she still I think I read it somewhere maybe long, but is she still allowed to be part of the board into advance one if she chooses if it hasn't been a double term or has it's been a double term for you. Okay. Okay. I can answer that. Even if it's been a double term, she's about she's able to remain until her seat is filled. Okay. That was my question. Thank you. If no one has been appointed to fill that seat, she serves until. Okay. Wonderful. Well, my one of my first things that we had to deal with there. And being that this is with the Social Services Commission, so we're at their back in the end. Yeah, especially that one. Yes. OK. Yeah. So. OK. Great. Please call me till you can. So it may not be your. I'm going to go in here. Don't go anywhere yet, great. Please call me till you can't call me number. So it may not be your number. Don't go anywhere yet, Miss Dole. Don't come back, catch care. Months. Years, even years. I'll entertain, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. I'll make a motion that we're adjourned. Would that be a second? All in favor, at the polls same time. We are adjourned.