NORWICH – Department of Social Services Commissioner Bette Osborne praised her staff for “taking their jobs to heart” upon delivering the department’s 2011 annual report Monday to the Chenango County Board of Supervisors.
“We are here to help people. And we do that respectfully and as efficiently as possible,” she said.
The job is hardly stress-free. The commissioner said it’s a challenge to hire people to listen to other people’s problems for seven hours a day. Whether it’s a child support battle between ex-spouses, automobiles that have broken down, lost jobs, day care struggles or unpaid electric bills, caseworkers need to be able to empathize every day and not take work-related emotions home with them. Finding individuals with both characteristics is difficult, she said.
Staff also need to weather the stresses that come with keeping abreast of technological changes as state and federal mandates for new software, and often times new hardware, come down the pike. Computerization and staffing remain DSS’ biggest concerns for 2012. When asked by Smyrna Supervisor James Bays to describe the communications between the different state health department services such as Foster Care, Medicaid, and Food Stamps, Osborne described them as being “all in their own silos.”
“Their computers don’t talk to each other. At least we have one system that can work with all their different computers, thanks to our own IT department. ... I’m not seeing them (the state) come together in the foreseeable future,” she said.
Nearly 350 families in the county received cash assistance either from the federal government or from the 75 percent locally afforded Safety Net system. The caseload numbers have increased over the past three years from 218 in 2007. About a decade ago, the federal government capped case assistance to families for five years, but Osborne said many move onto the primarily county-provided Safety Net level for another two years, and after that, the county may continue to pay clients’ bills for an unspecified amount of time. Commissioner Osborne said about 10 families in Chenango County switched from the 100 percent federally funded program to county-taxpayer support last year.
About 20 percent of the county’s population qualify for food stamps (8,000) and Medicaid (7,091). And again, the trend for the past three years has been up, with a 66 percent increase of the number of individuals receiving food stamps. Osborne’s annual report correlates the state’s online application system and electronic benefit card transaction systems implemented by New York State back in 2010 with a 4 percent increase last year.
Medicaid payments to providers total $79.7 million in 2011; $11 million of which was locally paid. The amount represents all but a small fraction of the county’s current $84 million spending plan. Pharsalia Supervisor Dennis Brown took the opportunity during the commissioner’s presentation to educate the new members of the board about Medicaid.
Brown said Medicaid was the ever-present “80 million pound gorilla in the room.”
“It is key to understand that this is where we put all of our money. It has laid waste to everything else we’ve ever tried to do for regular people. Understand what DSS has taken away from other programs and services,” he said.
During a hearing of the department’s annual report in committee prior to the board meeting, City of Norwich Supervisor Robert Jeffrey asked what was driving the Medicaid caseload increase and local share up $600,000 since 2009. Osborne blamed the economy and businesses that do not provide medical insurance for their employees. She pointed to the 3.5 percent state-mandated cap on increases while the costs for goods and services keep going up, and also higher income guidelines that make more people eligible to receive Medicaid than before.
Homeless housing issues and utility emergencies encompassed the most challenging areas last year, Osborne said. There were about 20 to 22 people per month who came into DSS and claimed homelessness. The problem is not going away, Osborne told a committee earlier this year. DSS and Catholic Charities are currently investigating the possibility of building a 12-bed homeless shelter somewhere in the county.
Child Support Services support a total of more than $5 million of incoming child support payments, nearly $400,000 of which directly benefited children in the Family Assistance caseload. Caseload numbers in the Child Protective Services unit leveled off in 2011, while the complexity of the individual cases has been on the rise. In 2011, DSS investigated 1,063 cases of child abuse or neglect within the county and referred or provided 111 cases to Children’s Preventative Services. Osborne said the numbers had not fluctuated from the previous year.
The biggest increase in departmental activity was seen in the Adult Services unit. Increased caseloads were seen in the personal care, adult protective, adult preventative, and financial management. As the number of older residents is on the rise, Osborne expects this trend to continue.
DSS also provides employment services for county residents applying for or in receipt of cash assistance. Caseworkers and income maintenance examiners work with the office of Employment and Training to divert applicants from opening cash assistance cases by assisting them with employment opportunities and providing employment supports. For those already on assistance and able to be employed, they work aggressively to minimize their length of stay on cash assistance and encourage self sufficiently.
In December 2011, Chenango County ranked 6th highest in the state for its engagement rate, and 1st in the medium to small counties category for participation.
“That’s a really significant accomplishment for a county our size,” said Osborne.
In all, the commissioner said caseworkers have been able to keep a lid on the costs that the county has a chance of having control over, but said the reality is 99 percent of what DSS does is mandated by the state health department. Supervisor Brown said the county was “fortunate to have people like Bette minding it (the mandated costs) for us.”