Today's Human Services Committee Meeting

Prior to today's Human Services Board meeting, I spent almost an hour and a half meeting with Eric Diamond, the Human Services Administrator.  Eric gave me a lot of great and useful information about the department, and it was a very productive meeting.  He also gave me a tour of the department's facilities.

Vice Chair.
Today we elected the Vice-Chair, and chose a citizen member of the Human Services Committee and a past County Board Supervisor who was the chair of the Human Services Committee at one point in his tenure.  Leslie "Les" Borman is our Vice-Chair.  In talking with him, he seems like a very experienced and knowledgeable resources, so I am glad we have him on the committee.

High Risk Client.
We approved an extra 2% profit for an organization that is assisting us in transitioning a high risk client out of the Winnebago Mental Health Institute ("WMHI") to a residential facility.  The extra profit works out to about $550 per month, and will cover some of the provider's costs in making upgrades to this facility.

For some additional background, WMHI charges $1,289 per day, and this client has been there for 14 months.  So far the county's costs since March of last year for this one case exceeds $500,000.  As well, WMHI is at full capacity when they have 189 patients, and they currently have 210 patients.  With the new arrangement, the daily charge will vary, however a good working estimate is $700 per day.  In discussing this case with Eric prior to the meeting, he gave me every assurance that this new arrangement will very likely improve her recovery prognosis, and that everyone involved in the case agrees that this is a positive step for her.

The net outcome is that we improve the client's prognosis for a recovery and save the county roughly $600 per day.  That works out to $18,000 per month, or $126,000 for this year if the client moves in on June 1st.  This is a win for both the client and us taxpayers.

Thank you to Eric and Jackie, and everyone else on their team, for their hard work in helping this client!

Closed Session
We did go into close session related to a contract negotiation.  I cannot speak to the specifics that were discussed. 

When we came back into open session, I did report that I previously had an employment relationship related to the vendor roughly 2 decades ago for a period of approximately 6 months.  Since I have no current financial arrangement with the vendor, the County Attorney saw no reason for me to abstain from voting on the issue.  Our County Attorney is very ethical on these matters, so I am confident that if there was a conflict, she would have advised me to abstain from voting on the issue.