It is 4 o'clock. I'll call this meeting to order. We have an agenda before us. 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 to do board member Hitch. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I will sit here and shut up, sir. No, sir. Thank you, sir. Keep us in line. Thank you, sir. Sir, we don't need you. Could it be a second? Thank you. All in favor, aye? Aye. The polls same side. 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 Ms. Pellegrini, it's 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 so I can't Did we send him up? Okay. I can see the meter. But I was a year old at 19, I even thought. 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, minutes have already been set out. So we'll take it one at a time. February 19th, which we would have voted on on the March the 19th, I'll entertain a motion to accept February 19th minutes that have been previously set out. I make a motion that weeks out there were 19 minutes. The bill's second on that. Second. All in favor, aye. All right. Opposed same sign. All right. Is it my understanding with the board members that we have not had a chance to review more the 19th's minutes. Correct, but also I know I'm that weird person who will vote on minutes for a meeting where I wasn't present. We will yes sir. It would still be appropriate even for a board member who was not President of the Union. 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 always feel weird voting to say yes or no 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. 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 them. They heart you know what I'm saying. 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. Sidney Pelladrini. 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 he wanted to further some stuff in his education and he knew this would take away from his time and his education of what he wanted to do so he resigned. This Pellagrini 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 stepped down to be on 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 enjoy 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 Flutcher. 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. She's been with us for three days now. Oh, no. No, no. 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, a boy. Welcome. It has been a little week, three days. Yes, thank you so much. We do this as part of our routine and so that the board will know who you are and you get to 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 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 going to do whatever you want to do with it and you have to use it. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're like, he're going to leave. I can help you. You're going to leave. You're going to leave. I can help you. You're going to leave. You're going to leave. I can help you. You're going to leave. You're going to leave. I can help you. You're going to leave. You're going to leave. You're going to leave. You're going to leave. the person I record it's going to be on the board review the personnel report. It's going to be 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 Ms. Pellet, you have an understanding. you. After 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 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 a hundred 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. And so they are driving several hours and several hours back. And so sometimes 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 the middle page 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 times, so that's the 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 work, IAT, that's child protective services, five positions have opened 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 in those positions. Any more questions from the agency? Process, pulling, good with the vacancies we're in there. Yes. We're pretty good. 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 those five 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 in deep amazing I still have a social or super by association up, but it's it's been good Yeah, indeed it made the biggest difference the applications and the interviews that Tiffany's discussing came through indeed. They've been good at it. That's all that you can call about. Yeah, we just kind of wonder why we're not using it indeed. And so we put Kayla on it and so now we're using it indeed. And it is truly working. It's hard to complete some of the bigger counties and bases. Uh, 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, we got it was like a huge win. We were like, you know, I was like, I was like, okay. So we interviewed him. I said, now what's going to happen? going to happen once we tell him 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. Notice. And she went to another county as a case worker. She worked there until launch. And she called her supervisor here and said, I hate it here. Can I come back? She worked till lunch. She still lunch. She worked the full day, but she called at lunch and it took us until that afternoon to get through to our HR. Make sure you have your hands. We called Deborah and I was like Deborah. She helped us and she just, Deborah reversed it just that quickly because we had it done within a day. Then you can ride all the bikeers. I 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, a rude awakening. Yes, and that's 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 leave. 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. You don't matter. Sometimes you have to venture outside to understand what's good here. Any other questions or comments on the question? I will go ahead. Before we get to the next item, just for the board's information, the March to 19th minutes were sent out on 321 at 924 AM. Just for case you need to go back, you wanna see that. And the reason that I was here just, I'm glad. Good. But the original came out of March 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 bed on state funds. We have four different sections for our budget. Program revenues, administrative revenues, program expenses and administrative expenses. Your 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 your, you know, 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 at 75% right 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 total budget so we're under at 5%. So do you have a page flip? Yeah, page 10. Thank you. Yes. Yeah, very nice face. And I don't think I highlighted it, but I normally I 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 ask me. One, some things, and 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 that number. possibly get one so two bulls I don't know why I I'm a lot of people. Okay. I think it's hard to make use of that money. I think it's going to be a lot of people. 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 the 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 Looks like yes, only work first services. Why is it so low? 9.9 C. Where are you? Oh, hey, sir. 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, 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 not 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 a stick. I have children. They have children in the house under 18. A lot of people just prefer going to work and I happen to deal with bringing this in and this for men and that for men. If all they're going to get is $236 so they just rather. That's for a householder too. 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 enough by the way that so. Even if they don't work are there other services they get like the bootstants 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, who 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 be a work 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, Mr. Price. We'll come back to do with the health service report. Alrighty. And Mr. 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, child support, Medicaid, transportation, program integrity, economic services, food assistance, Medicaid workforce, subsidized childcare, crisis intervention, which you're going to hear people call SIP, LEAP 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 gear 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 the door was a bit parage. As a parent, or as a caretaker, or a person, 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 Get to letter fade ask for it back. Well, what about the person that's been accused? The way that that works is that whoever that that we call them a perpetrator of the abuse They're part of it. They're they're part of that so 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 the map? 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, no, no, no. I'll try to find that answer. Why is it open or is it closed or? And that's the thing that he was worried about, because he's trying to look at a position of employment and he didn't know what his ovaries hate. I'm like, I know what happens if I call the report and I get a letter back by the question of but I just wasn't sure about when you're on the other side of the court. Right. Yeah because he's he's part of it. He's what they consider the perpetrator of the case. So yeah I I don't know if I have that email or not, but I would yeah, I'm just asking the colonel send her over to Tiffany. Yeah, I just did want to say his name out loud. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we wouldn't we wouldn't do that. Woodward 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 call ID 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. Not yet. What do you say, crack? Give it down. Let me know. 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 fact. You're trying to misdied for program updates on the social work. And me and Ms. Cindy, we met and sat down top before. So she knows what I do. And she knows what I work for. I can show her services as she she's a guardian in life 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 blue and join us in for child abuse prevention months. And so pretty much that's all. And just, you know, I got adult services supervisor and new in place, that's the one that Lori retired. So, you know, just a lot 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 are there people know about the process for foster home? 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 get people out of 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 would you 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 fructantly 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 they might not foster because they've already taken care of grandparents or raised any grandchildren. 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 foster care system as it relates to recruitment, retention and foster parents. So we had that meeting on Monday, and they will, they're just 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 too 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 calling the churches. Let them know that it you 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 our pop, the Resource Parent Outreach outreach program 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, 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, you know, 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 and social is to foster parents because in the whole scheme of things sometimes such 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 Riham 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. Pardon part of you, tonight interrupt you in the same 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 are we fixing those issues? I'm gonna put that over to Tiffany because we've had the conversations about so Tiffany, you wanna 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 gonna work on, we're definitely working on 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, look at it's in-house and if it's in progress, and if it's not in progress, we need to be moving forward with custody. So, and then it'll start that fire's the care part of it. So just create up our glasses. Give yourself the credit for, we talked about the court process and I know it's in place, but because I saw the court process that you put in place that we talked about, mom's. Got a blank. Okay, well you sent it to me. I know, I was the ugly, the outstretched So so so we talked about how we can make sure that cases were not dragging on. Which is basically staffing, making sure that you know we are processing cases and getting close out. So so now it 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 intern 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 caring 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, with any year. It has a timeline. May not always make it, but there should be some good justification. In home services it has a timeline of six months. Seek as 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 say, 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 it 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 of determination. 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 sharpening things up. I saw your hand. Yes. In the individual case loads, what kind of model are you using for pool systems? To prioritize and deadlines, being mad, that kind of thing. You all have a particular pool system to be used. So basically, I mean, we definitely follow the policy in the end days and there's something up some on the way. Well, you know, things do get out of compliance and things like that. We try to make sure we put 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, it turnover, you know, it kind of gets, 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 calendar and that way back in the day. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about. people, courts going on, or they keep in a pool in cases and organize, because they don't have some kind of pool system, they're not organized. Some people are organized, some people aren't 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? Technology. You know what? So yeah, no calendar, do you know? 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 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. What's wrong? 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 pay more money. So is it, how does, 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. Right, right. Correct. Yeah. I don't know if that makes sense or not, but if you can, if you think of it as another way. I just know some people, they said they work for private agency. And they're part of the team. They pay more. Yeah. So I was just just wondering. We pay whatever the state, right. The state's a lot meant to us. Right. 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 them. how you would probably get foster care kids, but how do they get 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 model rate basis. That's why they pay more so that private. Yes, 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 got a space but Pam and I could not see that years ago, and it was just a lot of money. I just got a money. It was a lot of money. And we may need this space, we may not, but you have to pay for it. It's kind of like, daycare, you know how whether your child's out sick or you're going to be okay, You're still spam, but that's about me. Yeah, right. They're doing the same thing now with the foster-to-spaces. But that's a lot of money. But a lot of counties are doing it. We didn't do it. Any other questions, comments, social work? Thank you, Mr. Dott. We go to risk bridges, economic. Miss bridges. Miss bridges. Miss bridges. She's gone. Oh, see I'm looking down. I stand corrected. You have to record reflect. I said the wrong name. Who will go to this Susan and then? That's him. We need fix that. Thank you. We got to do this. She got me. For the disaster, disaster, anti-acidance. We have to. I'm sorry. We have 29,000. I said it for you, Susan. I can feel you wanted to say it. You were just being polite. I think I said it twice today. So, for the disaster energy assistance, we have $29,826 left in that balance. We are thinking about it. And the 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 how we think that balance is going to be used 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 on 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 and waivers expired. That's all I have. Is it all you have, Miss Emily? Yes, it is. I'm sorry. I mean. 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 this process of printing it now. We do have, you know, right there at the point of the budget, don't have a lot of money, like the public pennies pen, and one of the things that I'm just sort of, see where we are before we get blinds. But we are very close and we're excited and we need to know if the board's 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 darkwood health 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 can't arrest you, 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 if 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 the Pam. Susan. It's beautiful. I'm tired. I haven't done that. I haven't seen it at all. You have a scene that I'm bumping in. Wow. You just want to be real shocked. Yeah, more of this. I'm surprised. Yeah, the final spot. OK. 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 me. 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 Wonderful for these kids Me too Yeah, we're all excited. I'm trying to get my tears all out before the Mesa, but We're looking forward to it and that's'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. OK. 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. 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 First and last official meeting Tag they can be it If there's nothing else to come before the board I'll entertain them motion to adjourn No, I just want to know something I'm pretty sure yes, man Let's suppose it's a June is for her last, is a June that you come off. You still get to June. Can she still, I think I read it somewhere, it may be long. But is she still allowed to be part of the board into advance the one if she chooses if it hasn't been a double term or has it been a double term for you? It's been a double term or has it 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 evening. Yeah, especially that one. Yes. OK. Yeah. So. OK. Great. Please call the till. You can't call the number. So it may not be your number. I'm going to go be here. Don't go anywhere yet. Don't talk about cash care. Years even years. I'll entertain the motion to adjourn. I'll make a motion that we're adjourned. Would that be a second? Check. All in favor, aye? Aye. The polls same time. We are adjourned.