Supervisors receive update on mental health reorganization

By STEPH TAHTINEN

Mt. Pleasant News

Henry County Central Point of Coordination (CPC) Administrator Sarah Kaufman has been working with other area CPCs on a regionalization plan.

Kaufman met with the Henry County Board of Supervisors for her monthly update on Tuesday morning and presented a first draft of the plan. However, she noted that this plan could change once the supervisors are added to the mix and start discussing the region.

?This is just us (CPCs),? said Kaufman. ?This could change when the supervisors get together.?

New legislation in the state has mandated that the counties band together to form regions to provide mental health services. There must be at least three counties in a region, they must be contiguous counties, and there must be access to certain services.

Henry County has been in discussion with six other counties ? Keokuk, Washington, Van Buren, Lee, Des Moines and Louisa ? to form a seven-county region. However, Kaufman also informed the supervisors that there has been some talk of Henry County possibly being in a three-county region with Washington and Louisa counties. Kaufman said she was more in favor of the larger region.

?My philosophy is that there?s strength in numbers,? said Kaufman, who noted she would not advise a region larger than seven counties. ?There?s just some power in a larger unit, in my opinion.?

Kaufman said that although providing mental health services should not be about politics, the new system is changing to being more about politics than ?doing right.?

One area in which the politics may alter services is in what a region funds. There must the same services in all of the counties in a region ? it is ?all or none,? Kaufman said.

This may translate to residents of Henry County no longer funding developmental disabilities, which Kaufman explained as something delaying cognitive development before age 22. Counties are not required to fund developmental disabilities, but Henry County has always done so in the past. Other counties have not.

?Your disagreement is that all these counties that have never funded it, they?ll have no idea what it?s going to cost,? said Kaufman.

In terms of funding services, regions will have the option of either pooling their money or keeping each county?s money separate. Kaufman noted the CPCs were leaning towards keeping them separate for awhile. However, she noted that if the counties? money is not pooled, the individual counties would not have control over their own money ? the region would control the fund.

County Auditor Shelly Barber noted that this could cause some problems because of different software programs used by the counties. Although there would most likely be one county taking care of the financials, Barber noted that reports coming from another county would be set up different because there are two different programs used by the counties.

?Their stuff is done totally different,? said Barber.

In terms of running the region, Kaufman said that the CPCs could be kept on as county employees and that they could rotate the CEO function to head the region. The CEO would have supervisory authority over the other CPCs.

In other business, the supervisors heard the weekly update on the secondary road department from Jelen McCall, office manager. McCall was filling in for County Engineer Bill Belzer, who is on vacation this week.

During the meeting, McCall opened bids for a new motor grader for the department. There were two bids received, each providing a base bid and an offer for a trade-in on the department?s

Altorfer Inc. in Cedar Rapids had a base bid of $260,180 for a Cat 140M2 and offered $21,500 for the trade-in, making a net bid of $238,680. The motor grader is in inventory and could be delivered quickly.

John Deere of Moline, Ill. bid $218,000 for a John Deere 770G and offered $22,375 for the trade-in, making a net bid of $195,625.

?At this point, Deere is low,? said McCall, though she noted there are many other details from the specs to consider. ?There are other items, Bill [Belzer] will look over those.?

Supervisor Marc Lindeen asked the John Deere and Altorfer Inc. representatives, who were present at the meeting, about the capabilities of a GPS within the motor grader, which would provide information such as how long the machine was idling, its fuel consumption, its workload and its location.

Belzer will be reviewing the bids along with the options provided with each motor grader before making a decision.

McCall also informed the supervisors that the bid to replace the bridge on 310th Street over Fish Creek came in lower than expected. The low bid was $234,137.98. The project estimate was a little over $329,000.