Fundraiser, Budget, Ingham Health Plan, Health and Zoo Directors, DSH Payment, Veterinarian

Welcome back to the Schor Blog. Sorry for the two week delay!

First, a political note: I invite everyone to my next fundraiser for my State Representative campaign. It is tomorrow (Thursday) from 5:30 - 7:30 at the home of Commissioner Penelope Tsernoglou and Steve Ross at 1197 Prescott in East Lansing. For more details, go to www.andyschor.com.

Now, on to the County Issues...

At the Board meeting, we were given our Controller Recommended Budget. After months of hearing budget projections, meetings with countywide elected officials and department heads at the County, and discussions of direction for staff to take in drafting a budget we now have a starting document. And because our Controller is the best in the state (nation? world?), this is likely going to be very close to the final product. We will now start on budget discussions, with each committee holding budget hearings and the Finance committee (which I chair) putting it all together and recommending a final product for the Board to consider in October. Should be an interesting few months as we solve a $5.5 million budget deficit.

At the Board meeting, we passed several important resolutions. One resolution we passed authorizes a Public Health Service Agreement for 2011-2012 with the Ingham
Health Plan Corporation (IHPC). For those that don't know, we contract with the IHPC to provide public health services to low income residents of Ingham County. The IHPC amount this year is for services up to $2,603,118. The services include:
- Public Health Nursing
- Adult Dental
- Outreach and Enrollment
- Support for the Ingham Community Health Center Network

The Ingham Health Plan is a tremendous success in providing health care to the uninsured. If you are unfamiliar, go to www.ingham.org and follow the page to the Health Department and you can get all the info. I am very proud of this program and our support for it.

We also transferred funds to the State of Michigan for the purpose of supporting
Disproportionate Share Hospital (DHS) payments to Ingham Regional Medical Center and Sparrow Health System. The federal government allows for an “Indigent Care Agreements Pool” for hospitals which qualify for Medicaid Disproportionate Share (“DSH”)payments and allows them to receive DSH payments under the Indigent Care Agreements Pool so long as: (a) the hospital had an Indigent Care Agreement with a local health care entity, such as Ingham Health Plan Corporation; and (b) the Indigent Care Agreement stipulated that direct or indirect health care services be provided to low-income patients with special needs who are not covered under other public or private health care programs. Both Ingham Regional Medical
Center and Sparrow Health are qualified to receive these special payments.
The Ingham Health Plan Corporation was created in 1998 as a non-profit corporation for the purposes of promoting, arranging, and managing an effective system of health care in a manner which decreases the cost of health care services to the community at large and persons unable to pay for such care. The Corporation also supports certain public health services which are directed at low-income, uninsured persons, including services delivered by the Ingham County Health Department. We transferred up to $3.8 million for the year from the Health Fund to support Disproportionate Share Hospital Payments to Ingham Regional Medical Center and Sparrow Health System.

The Board also passed a resolution calling on the State Legislature to oppose efforts to make Michigan a right-to-work state. After hearing that other counties were providing resolutions (both for and against), we decided Ingham County should weigh in to ensure that our legislators and our countywide association know the opinions of the elected commissioners of Ingham County. There was no discussion on the Board floor, and the resolution passed on a 13-2 vote. The resolution (and all others) can be read here.

We passed a resolution to form a special committee to look at hiring a new Health Director. Unfortunately, our Health Director - Dean Sienko - is retiring. He has been tremendous as a Health Director, and will be missed. We have a world class Health Department due to his leadership, and he will be hard to replace. The task force has a tough job ahead of them. We are also going to have to replace the director of the Potter Park Zoo. We learned that Gerry Brady is retiring and we will need to fill that post as well. Tough times, but new leadership is always an opportunity for new ideas and innovation!

The final resolution I will mention is the hiring of a part-time veterinarian. Ingham County Animal Control has historically contracted for veterinary services at the shelter to examine and treat sick and injured animals and prescribe medications. The annual renewal of the contract has always been tenuous as few, if any, applicants apply. We had persuaded a local veterinarian to apply until a more permanent vendor could be contracted; however, that permanent vendor has eluded us. Each time the position is up for renewal it struggles to attract candidates based
on the wage amount, hours and contract requirements. The current vendor (veterinarian) accepted the bid on a short term basis simply to help the shelter
out. However, due to his busy practice he has expressed his desire to opt out but will continue until a replacement is found. However, he proposed to double the current contract. We couldn't accept that, so we decided to hire a part-time veterinarian (instead of contracting) for 20 hours per week. We included in the job description spaying and neutering of animals and other medical procedures to be required as part of the service conducted at the shelter at no additional cost. Animal Control will have the equipment and facilities to conduct such treatments. In addition to creating a more stable position, it ensures better training of animal care staff by a veterinarian, increases the quality of care, provides much needed veterinary care of the high volume of sick injured and abused animals brought into the county’s animal shelter, and results in long term savings on funds and resources currently spent on injured animal care, surgical, spay/neuter and veterinary costs.

I will remind those that read this blog by getting the facebook email that facebook is eliminating the group at some point. So, if you want to continue to get notifications, please "like" my facebook fan page. You can go here to do it - http://www.facebook.com/#!/andyschor.

I hope you have a great week!

New Drain Project, Foreclosure Fraud, Efficiencies in Register of Deeds Ofc, Fundraiser Update

The County Commission was back in action this week. We had committee meetings, where we do most of the details of our work (as you know if you are a weekly reader).

In County Services and Finance, we took up a resolution pledging full faith and credit of the count for the bonds for the Kalamink Consolidated Drain Drainage
District Bonds. Drain Commissioner Pat Lindemann discussed the project. Webberville village and LeRoy Twp initiated this. The Drain Commissioner held meetings in the affected communities (2 townships and the village). This is a consolidation of two older drains into one. There are 933 parcels in the district and it is 12 ½ miles long. Drain Commissioner Lindemann told us that with 10,250 acres in the drainage district, individual assessments won’t be that large. The Drain Commissioner will replace a culvert, and will also take out 2 old pipes and put in a spanned bridge for 5 homes (that they will pay for) to relieve water backs up and very flooded driveways. There were over 25 potential bidders at a pre-bid meeting (which tool 2 ½ hours to show what needs to be done and bid on). The project will follow prevailing wage and will have a Project Labor Agreement. They are expecting at least 12 bids. After the County Commission approves this resolution, bids will come in (the bid process opens on Wednesday) then there will be a meeting with residents to talk about cost. The drain will be maintenance free for 20 years or more. The County pledges full faith and credit so that the Drain Commissioner can get a lower credit rating and save money.

A second resolution that passed was to contract with Legal Aide of Central Michigan to take Referrals from the Ingham County Register of Deeds and the Ingham County treasurer for foreclosure fraud cases. As reported in previous County Updates, hundreds of fraudulent foreclosure cases have been discovered by Register of Deeds Curtis Hertel, Jr. He is a statewide leader in rooting out these fraudulent foreclosures. He said that there are over 400 MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems) problematic foreclosures. In fact, all assignments my MERS were recently declared illegal. Hertel is working with County Treasurer Eric Schertzing and they have been doing great work, but there is too much for any one person to do. Legal Aide will be very helpful because they have foreclosure experts and counselors that can supplement what the County is doing. The Register of Deeds and Treasurer are mailing to those individuals that can be found and offering help from legal aide and other resources. We are trying to get these people back into their houses. Not only is this the right thing to do, it will also bring in more money to the county because it keeps people in their homes and keeps the tax base up. Even banks are coming to table to keep people in their homes, and this will help that effort. The only thing that residents can do now is to hire their own attorney. The Register of Deeds is trying to create a 3rd party tribunal in state law, but that hasn't happened yet. The Register of Deeds will also be conducting symposiums across the county soon to address foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, and property fraud. While anyone can get advice from Legal Aide and their are no income restrictions, they are not taking people as clients who can afford their own attorney. If you are in need of advice or assistance, you can contact the Register of Deeds or Legal Aide.

Finally, we considered a resolution to authorize the purchase of a new record management system for the Register of Deeds Office. The current system is not working and we had real problems with the current vendor which just couldn't be bridged. An evaluation committee comprised of staff from the Register of Deeds Office, Purchasing and MIS recommended awarding a contract to Fidlar Acquisition for $555,000 for a new land records management system (which includes five years of support and maintenance). Fidlar has a high degree of knowledge of the various aspects of recording land and vital documents in the State of Michigan – currently 15 other County Register of Deeds clients in Michigan are using Fidlar. In total, Fidlar has 218 county clients throughout 14 states and has been providing technology solutions to Recorder’s offices since 1987. Fidlar has a well-qualified staff consisting of 52 people, 7 of which were added in the past 18 months. Fidlar has agreed to meet all the County’s contractual terms and conditions and procurement policies. Also, MIS will purchase the required computer hardware for the new system from registered County vendors at a not to exceed cost of $25,189. This new contract is expected to bring in about $400,000 additional revenues in next 4 years
to the general fund. The contract will be paid for by the Register of Deeds Automation Fund, and not the General Fund. The contract will be a 4 year contract, and anything new that the company creates we get for free. Register of Deeds Hertel told us that this will improve accuracy and speed of work flow in his office. It will also ensure that the County is complying with state law in dealing with the order in which documents are put on record. It will capture more data on each document to help protect citizens from fraud, and will insure the protection of our online data. Finally, it will allow us to market ourselves against overseas title mills. I commend the Register of Deeds for his proactive work on this to make systems better and more efficient!

For all those following my political campaign, I hope you will join me at my next fundraiser on Monday. You can see the details on my webpage at www.andyschor.com. The campaign has been going really well and the support has been tremendous. I look to keep the momentum going for the next 15 months! Thanks everyone!!!

Parks Incentive Programs, Medical Director, Fees, Fundraiser Thank-you

I hope everyone had a great week. I apologize for this blog being so late. The week just got ahead of me!

Usually the Board of Commissioners committee process has liaison committees working on resolutions then the Finance committee changing them. In this case, it worked almost in reverse. The County Services committee this week considered a resolution dealing with approvals for discount incentive programs at the zoo. Last year, the county offered free zoo entrance for moms on Mothers Day, dads on Fathers Day, and grandparents on Grandparents day. The Parks department brought us a resolution that would extend that to every year. The resolution, though, did not specify that it was only for these days and that it was only for Ingham County residents. I raised concerns in committee that the resolution would allow the appointed Parks Commission to waive entrance fees at the zoo whenever they wanted, and that would be an inappropriate power. Only the elected Commissioners should have that power in my opinion. The Parks Director testified that the intention was only for the resolution affect those three days, so we unanimously amended it to reflect that.

In Finance, though, the resolution was amended back to the original language. First, Commissioner Bahar-Cook argued that the resolution shouldn't just be for Ingham County residents. She argued that if moms came on Mothers Day and got in free, even from other counties, the moms would also come with children and other adults who would still pay the entrance fee. It would attract more money to the zoo, while also bringing more people to the zoo on these three days. Her amendment passed unanimously. Commissioner Nolan then said that the zoo board and Parks Commission should have the power to waive fees whenever they want and that she believed that the resolution should be expansive. I argued that I thought it was too much power in non-elected hands and that the elected Commissioners should be the ones to approve waivers of fees. I lost. The amendment passed 4-2. The final resolution also passed committee 4-2. I opposed the resolution because I remember previous years when the Parks Commission waived fees for parks that we didn't agree with, and we had to go back and amend their authority so that the Commission had the final say. I am afraid this will be the same situation. We will see what happens on Tuesday.

We also considered another resolution that would hire a medical director needed for our Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC's). The Health Director requested that the new medical director be hired in at Step 5 (the highest pay step) and several Commissioners took issue with the continual practice of hiring people in at the highest pay level. The Health Director, Dr. Sienko, explained that this position was needed as a result of an audit of the FQHC program. The federal government highly recommended that we have a medical director with clinical and administrative experience. The individual that the Health Director has recommended has over 20 years experience in pediatrics and was the best candidate in terms of administrative and clinical experience. The position will be ½ time in administrative and ½ time in patient care at St Lawrence or Sparrow (helping citizens and generating county revenues). We now only have an internist in that position, but that doctor does clinical rather than administrative work. While I understand the concern about hiring in at the top level, it seems that the real issue is that it is very difficult to get quality doctors in at our pay levels. The doctor we are hiring is taking a pay cut, and we need to be competitive...especially to ensure that we receive the millions of federal dollars associate with our FQHC's. The few thousand dollars that we are going to spend to bring someone in at Step 5 instead of a lower step will be leveraged by about $900,000 that we are getting from the federal government which could be at risk. After a lot of discussion, the resolution passed.

Finally, we began our discussion of fees. Both the County Services and Finance Committees focused on the Parks Department fees. The shelters at the parks are each going up about 50%. They haven't gone up in 10 or 15 years, so this is catching it up with where it should be. I pointed out that there is always significant demand for these shelters and, while people won't love the increase, this is probably warranted. I argued strongly, though, against increasing the entrance fees for the parks. These fees just went up last year, and I have heard from my constituents the unhappiness about the fees at Hawk Island going up two years in a row. While the Budget Department requested an entrance fee increase, the Controller did not recommend it and I argued against an entrance fee at Hawk Island and Lake Lansing and Burchfield. So far, those fees are not being raised. The Human Services committee had several questions about the Pollution Prevention resolution fees, and other fees were discussed in other committees. We did not vote on this resolution, and will discuss it again at the next round of committee meetings.

On a personal note, thank you so much for everyone who contributed to my first fundraiser for State Representative. Thanks also for those who attended. We had over 60 people there, and raised more than $10,000. Checks are still coming in, we are finalizing the next fundraiser in a month or so. I am excited and humbled by the tremendous support I am receiving and look forward to the campaign next year.

Have a great Mothers Day to all the moms out there...

Andy

2011 Budget starts, Taxable Values Plummet, 911 Center Takes Final Steps, Hertel Catches Fraud, and Fundraiser Reminder

This week, we took the first steps to starting our budget. Every year, the first step in the budget process it to pass a resolution establishing the priorities to guide the development of the 2012 budget and activities of county staff. In the two committees that I serve on - County Services and Finance - there was little controversy. I understand that there was controversy in the Law Enforcement committee, and I assume we will hear more about that next week at the full Board meeting. We scaled back the resolution from previous years and didn't have to make big priority cuts. Our recent past years have seen us having to make big structural changes like closing a jail post, closing a park, eliminating road patrol, and other things. These changes have lead to the deficit this year being lower than it could have been. While a $5.5 million budget deficit is not easy to solve, it could have been much worse.

In conjunction with this, in Finance we received the annual Equalization report. we found out that 8 of the 13 townships and 4 of the 5 cities had negative taxable values compared to the year before. Of those that did not go down, it was because of agricultural property (Williamstown), new development panning out (Aurelius) and an industrial park coming back online for taxes (Mason). Otherwise, property values continue to fall and so do taxable values and tax revenues to communities. Not a good sign. Overall, taxable values in 2011 are a negative 244,061,553 (a 3.22% decline). Next year, in 2012, original estimations are that taxable values will go down another $300 million. This could be reduced to a negative $200 million, though, and our equalization director will keep us updated. These numbers will be used as we look at the status of our 2011 budget and as we start looking at preparing a 2012 budget. Total general fund revenues so far for 2011 are a negative $1,550,084. The estimated general fund revenues are expected to decline $1,905,360. Again, not a good
sign for keeping necessary services being provided. But we have great staff and great leadership, and we will make this work, as we have for the last few years. I am proud to be part of this process as the Finance Chair this year.

In addition to the budget, we took our next (and close to final) steps regarding the new 911 center. We passed a resolution to approve the final design plans and authorizing the Ingham County Building Authority to proceed with bid documents for the Ingham County consolidated 911 Dispatch Center project. This center will soon be built, and we will have finished a major consolidation that will centralize 911 dispatch resources and save dollars for the county moving forward.

I want to give a great bog shout-out and thank-you to Ingham County Register of Deeds Curtis Hertel, Jr. He recently rooted out numerous cases of fraud after seeing a report on 60 minutes about a certain scam. Hertel found over 60 examples of the same exact pattern and the same fraud committed in Ingham County by checking signatures on the mortgage assignment documents. Check out the news story here - http://www.wilx.com/localnews/headlines/Ingham_Co_Investigating_Fraudulent_Foreclosures_120330264.html.

Thanks Curtis! We will hear more from him soon on this blog.

Finally, a reminder - I will be having my first Andy Schor for State Representative fundraiser next week on Wednesday. For more information, you can go to www.andyschor.com. I have received amazing support so far and I expect this to be a great event. Thanks to everyone who has already contributed, and I look forward to a seeing everyone there!

That's it. Have a great week, everyone...and thanks for reading and caring about important issues in Ingham County.