Road Commission, Mowing Lansing Parks, Health Care Millage Proposal

Another busy week for the Ingham County Commission!

After many months of discussion and consideration, the County Services committee considered the resolution to dissolve the Road Commission Board and have the Ingham County Commission take over the powers of the Road Commission. Commissioner Celentino lead off the discussion and talked about the December Dec 15-1 vote of intention to take over the road commission. He said that the 15-1 vote was a vote of no confidence in the road commission and leadership at that time. Since that time, though, a new chair was installed and there is a new direction and restored relationships. Also, the road commission board is dealing with the problems and bad decisions that have occurred in the past. He said that the first phase to solving the problems at the Road Commission was for the county to absorb the Information Technology (IT), Finance, and Human Resources (HR) operations. This has been done with passage of resolutions by the Road Commission Board. Celentino argued that we need to give Chairman Dravenstatt-Moceri a chance to reach his goal s. His proposal was to pass amendments saying that the County Commission would take over these operations and give the Road Commission Board 6 months to show that they have fixed things. At that time, the County Commission would re-assess the situation and decide what needs to be done.

Commissioner Grebner argued against any such amendments or plan. He said that the Road Commission Board is guilty of meddling with employees and that they should not make decisions for anyone other than managing director. He said that the managing director currently doesn’t have the authority to hire his own employees. He can’t hire an operating director, and can’t get rid of an assistant that disagrees with his decisions. Grenber said that as long as the managing director doesn’t have control over subordinate positions, there is a problem with the Board.

I asked Chair Dravenstatt-Moceri if this is still the case and he said that the Road Commission Board gave the power of hiring and firing to the managing director though a resolution passed on March 19th. And he mentioned that the meeting before that, the Road Commission Board passed a resolution to contract with the county for IT, Finance, and HR. There is now a contract in place between the County and the Road Commission for the County to provide HR services. The county HR division does the scoring and recommendations for positions, class and pay analysis, recruiting , complaint resolution, etc. and the managing director does the actual hiring and firing. The Road Commission Board has been removed from the process and simply deals with roads.

After hearing all of this, I offered to draft language for a substitute that could be offered to do what Commissioner Celentino recommended. I did not have the time to draft it that night and doing amendments one-by-one wouldn’t make sense because of the many changes that needed to be made. A motion to table the resolution until the next meeting was offered so a substitute could be drafted. That motion was defeated 3-3. The resolution then was voted on, and it passed 4-2. Commissioner Todd Tennis offered the substitute that I worked on when the Finance committee met the next night. My understanding is that the substitute failed 5-1, and the resolution passed Finance 5-1 as well. The substitute will be offered on the Board floor when the resolution comes up on Tuesday.

The County Services Committee also again discussed the contract for mowing of small parks in the City of Lansing and the Lansing River Trail. The City of Lansing Parks Director attended the meeting and gave some good answers to our questions. He said that City seasonal employees are not being called back because of budget difficulties and not because of the contract with the County. While I appreciate his attendance and his answers, several questions were not really answered. I asked how many seasonals were called back in previous years and how many are being called back this year. He didn’t have the numbers, but said it was at least 17 or so. Knowing that the City has had budget difficulties the last few years, it is hard for me to believe that the County contract is not contributing to the lack of call-backs. I also could not get past the commitments made to us when we passed the contract that seasonal employees would be moved to other departments . That did not happen either. When asked what would happen if the County cancels the contract, the Lansing Parks Director said that either another public entity would contract with them to do the services, or they would call back more employees. It would depend on which is more cost efficient. As I said to Mlive, this was never a question about service. The County Parks Department does a terrific job. But I do not want to County to be the reason that Lansing seasonal employees are not called back and not making a living. As such, I voted to end the contract. First, Commissioner Grebner offered a motion for the resolution to be delayed until the end of the summer so that the contract could just end and not be renewed. That died without support. The resolution was then considered and passed 4-2.

In the Human Services committee, the Ingham Health Plan (note: this originally said Ingham Health Department, which was an error) made the case for a Health Care Millage to be put on the November ballot. The gave us a powerpoint talking about the Ingham Health Plan and how they are providing local solutions to local problems – specifically access to health care for low income folks. There are over 11,500 plan B members (which is the primary program). There are over 32,000 uninsured Ingham County adults. They said that the limitations on the program without more funding are lack of providers, access to timely care (people are seen in 6 weeks for new patients, or in 2-3 weeks for existing patients). Our Federally Qualified Health Centers are at capacity which cause these delays. Additionally, the IHP Board is looking at freezing or limiting enrollment. Hospital Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) ceilings are dropping so there is less hospital funding. DSH funding is based on uncompensated care, so when ceilings drop the federal DSH funding goes down. What we need are more providers, and the only way to get those is with higher reimbursement rates. There are questions that will only be answered when the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the Affordable Care Act in June. IHP costs will continue to rise, though, and with more members comes more assistance needed. Even if the ACA is not struck down by the courts, there are still 18,000 residents that remain uninsured . 40% of these people will receive Medicaid, but 60% will not realize that they are Medicaid eligible and will need the IHP to help them find that out. They said that with a millage, they can expand infrastructure and access, increase reimbursement rates for providers, help people navigate the system for services, etc. They are asking for .61 mills, which would be $4 million. The average household of $75,000 taxable value would pay $45.75 per year. We had a lot of questions for them. I reminded them that about five years ago, we had a glidepath towards 100% coverage, but hit a point where we just couldn’t find more people to be enrolled. Some people just don’t trust government and we hit a plateau. There were also other questions about the campaign and process, and about how this will relate with the other ballot initiatives on the November ballot. Personally, I am still not convinced that we should go to the ballot with this but I am open to the discussions which will continue throughout the summer.

We also considered lots of other issues, but this blog is long enough as it is. See you next week!

Health Department Restructuring, County Mowing Contract with Lansing, Substance Abuse and CMH Merger, Campaign Update

This week we had a very busy week. In County Services and Human Services, we took up a resolution to realign the administrative structure of the Health Department. Under former director Dr. Dean Sienko, we were in a unique situation where three positions were combined as one because Dr. Sienko could act as the Health Officer, Chief Medical Officer, and Health Department Director. The proposal is to go back to the old system of having three positions as required by law. We already have a Health Director, so it creates the other two positions. Because that would be a high budget impact on the county, the Health Director (Dr. Renee Canady) crafted a proposal to restructure much of the department. She was able to eliminate some management positions and combine positions to achieve significant savings for the county. When considered a few weeks ago, there was confusion in the numbers, but this week it was all made more clear. The realignment will result in the elimination of a total of five managerial positions, the establishment of one new managerial position, and the reallocation of managerial duties across existing staff. Positions proposed for elimination involve vacancies, thus avoiding negative effects to any incumbent employees. The proposal creates $24,836 in cost savings and creates additional provider capacity to serve clients in the Community Health Center Network, which in turn, will generate addition revenue for the department.

An issue that came up late dealt with the the contract between the county and the City of Lansing regarding mowing certain city parks. As you may recall, last year the County agreed to mow certain parks and the City would compensate. At the time, I had asked whether this contract would result in layoffs at the City. We were told that this would not create such a situation and the employees would be moved to other City operations. This week, we learned that the City announced that it would not bring back many of the seasonal employees that were laid off at the end of last season (they are laid off at the end of the summer and re-hired at the beginning). There were claims that this was due, in part, to the contract with the County. We added this as a discussion item to the County Services agenda and considered the possibiity of ending the contract with the City (we have to give 30 days notice). We were told by the UAW president that the layoffs are happening as a result of mowing. They said that there are 39 employees out of work, and some of these are due to contract between city and county. The UAW has submitted a proposal to the City to have their employees hired back. The City apparently has agreed not to privatize the services and that will bring back 17 of the employees.

The City was not represented at the committee meeting, as this was a late item and they could not have anyone there. Our county staff spoke with city staff and relayed to the committee the City's contention that the layoffs were normal and just would not be recalled. There were questions about what happens to the equipment that the county purchased for the mowing. It seems that if the contract is broken, the City doesn't have to buy the equipment back and the County would own it. If the contact goes to term but is not renewed, the City would have to purchase the equipment. I also asked questions about what happens to the parks if the contract is broken. I had previously heard that the contract would be part of the privatized contract. The UAW member indicated that because there will be no privatizations, breaking the contract will result in UAW employees being recalled for the work and the parks will still be mowed. Also, it was rasied that the City may have violated their contract with the UAW, which says that no employee can be displaced by a subcontracted employee. The UAW may go to arbitration on this.

Because most of the questions are for the City, it was moved that the City be requested to have someone at the next County Services meeting to answer the questions that were for them. Hopefully, someone will be able to attend.

In the Human Services Committee, we passed a resolution asking the state Department of Community Health to allow for the integration of the management of this region’s public substance abuse disorder prevention and treatment services (currently carried out by the Mid South Substance Abuse Commission) into the operations of the Community Mental Health Authority of Clinton, Eaton, and Ingham Counties. CMH would become the Coordinating Agency for administering Substance Use Disorder services, effective October 1, 2012. We had a good discussion about substance abuse services and how Mid South and CMH are ahead of the curve in initiating this merger. The Legislature is considering legislation to require these mergers, and our agencies are getting in front of the coming legislation by working on this now and making sure it is done right.

On the political front, the campaign continues to go very well. I am having tremendous response with voters and have picked up a few more endorsements. And fundraising continues to go very well! The field in the Democratic Primary is now more crowded, and we will be ramping up opportunities for volunteers. Please go to www.andyschor.com and sign up to volunteer or to contribute to the campaign. August 7th is just four months away, and is coming fast! Thanks everyone for all your support!