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Full-time collections officer pays dividend CASS COUNTY BOARD Cass County Correspondent WALKER - Linda Nye, Cass County Human Services collections director, reported Tuesday to the county board that expanding the collections officer position in her division in 2007 from part time to full time increased collections significantly more than the increased wages cost.
This collections program is designed to collect fees and benefit reimbursements for services from those who can afford to pay.
Overall, the collections officer recovered $72,901.37 in 2006 and increased collections in 2007 to $119,282.99 or $46,381.62 more. Cost for increasing the collections officer's wages to full time cost the county $22,030 more than in 2006.
The collections were recovered for medical assistance from estates of persons, for public assistance from persons who had been overpaid, from parents whose children were in out-of-home placements and from people who received detoxification services.
Jamie Richter, adult health services supervisor, reported she expects costs for people using South Country Health medical assistance to run lower in future years than in the initial year of 2007, because all participants had to undergo an initial screening. Starting this year, only those beneficiaries who are newly added will undergo that initial screening, thus saving some program costs.
Deb Andrews, team leader for the initial screenings, reported the largest number of Cass people age 64 and under were admitted to the program with asthma, followed by pregnancy, hypertension and cancer.
Of those age 65 and older admitted to the program the highest number had high blood pressure, followed by heart disease, asthma and non-skin cancer.
Of those admitted to South Country Health Alliance here, Andrews said 31 percent had recently experienced some misfortune in the last year such as job loss, disability, death of someone close or serving a jail term. Forty-seven percent were children under age 18. Eighty-three percent were non-smokers.
Dorothy Opheim, Health, Human and Veterans Services director, reported the 2008 departmental goals will include successfully transferring Indian child welfare services to Leech Lake Reservation's child welfare program, to promote family self-sufficiency through Minnesota Families Investment Program, to implement family-based crisis services, to integrate dental varnishing with the child-teen check-up program, to decrease the number of home care client re-hospitalizations, to maximize collaboration with Leech Lake Public Health, to study alternative transportation services for veterans and to increase community awareness of veterans benefits.
Faye Dudley, Veterans Services officer, reported she has been unable to find any additional funding sources to match the state's offer of only half of a two-year grant she sought to add another person to her office.
The county board split on the issue of whether the county should accept the half a grant and fund another veterans officer thereafter or not. Commissioners Jeff Peterson and Virgil Foster voted for, but Commissioners Jim Dowson and Bob Kangas voted against. Commissioner Jim Demgen was absent to attend the National Association of Counties meeting.
Dudley will send the state a letter of refusal for the grant, but will try to reapply for the full two-year amount again in the next state funding cycle.
Cass County currently has a clerical assistant to Dudley, who is partially trained to do some duties a fully qualified veterans officer does.
Administrator Robert Yochum told the board 72 percent of Minnesota counties have only a one-person veterans office. He also expressed concern about how the state funding shortfall will affect future county income.
Dudley had hoped to do more outreach to veterans living in nursing and assisted living homes and to make more house calls to disabled or elderly veterans had she been able to fund a third person in her office.
Cass County will pay $3,652 of the administrative costs for Central Minnesota Council on Aging's regional services to senior citizens.
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