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Board won't fund social worker in '07 CASS COUNTY BOARD Correspondent WALKER - Cass County commissioners reaffirmed Tuesday that they will not fund a social worker, even part-time, in 2007 to work with 16- and 17-year-old students who are not going to school.
Health, Human and Veterans Services Director Dorothy Opheim proposed a part-time social worker split her time between truancy cases and working on the Community Resource Management Team to process payments to medical assistance clients under the new South Country Health Alliance program. That program will replace a state administered program Jan. 1.
Four superintendents at schools serving Cass County had agreed to pay $1,500 each from their schools' budgets toward part of a social worker's salary to handle truancy cases for 16-and 17-year-olds, Opheim said. A fifth school district might also participate, she said.
Opheim proposed that a .8 time social worker spend .2 time on truancies and .6 time on implementing the new medical assistance program.
The commissioners, however, decided the new social worker, who will be hired at .8 time, should focus all her attention on implementing the new health care program. They also voted to hire Tina Crowley to fill that position.
They voted to pay the first year's minimum allowed amount, $348,880, to join South Country Health Alliance, which currently serves nine southern Minnesota counties. With the addition of Cass, Crow Wing and neighboring counties, it will serve clients in 14 counties in 2007.
South Country Health Alliance is a self-funded program supported by member county contributions into the fund and directed by those counties. It allows counties to choose to purchase or provide health care services for all persons eligible for prepaid medical assistance.
Opheim reported out-of-home child placement costs reached 98 percent of budget projections for the year after 92 percent of the year, indicating those costs will exceed the budget by year-end.
In November, 145 children were placed outside their own homes at a total cost of $265,859. The largest cost continues to be for children in correctional facilities, though those costs were about $40,000 less in November than October this year.
Overall, the Health, Human and Veterans Service expenditures through November ran about 1 percent under budget projections.
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