Committee OKs adding human services position

Taylor County human services will gain an additional employee and increase state funds for administrative and oversight expenses under a plan approved by both the county’s finance and personnel committees.

According to Human Services Director Suzanne Stanfley, Taylor County is part of a consortium that handles income maintenance for a 12-county region. The employees in the consortium are fully funded by state programs and they are allocated out to the various counties. Stanfley said another county is not able to recruit or retain workers to keep their position and was offering the positions up to others in the consortium. Stanfley said this is an opportunity to grow the county workforce with a fully funded position which will also bring with it an additional $11,000 to $16,000 in funding for administrative and indirect costs.

Committee chairman Chuck Zenner noted that this is fully funded at this point and asked what happens if the funding goes away.

Stanfley said all the positions in human services are at will and if the funding goes away, the positions would also go away.

The only objection to the proposal came from committee member Scott Mildbrand who objected based on this increase in staffing not being because of an increased workload, but being just an increase in staff. He said he has supported increasing staff at the department when it has been to meet the work needs of the community, but questioned if this increase was necessary.

If Taylor County chose not to take on the position, it, and the funding it brings with it, would shift to Wood County.

“I think it is a good opportunity for us,” Stanfley said. As far as space in the office, she said it is always tight, but many of the income maintenance staff work from home which reduces some of the impact. “We can make room,” she said.

“I don’t know that the county is in a position to add staff because of an opportunity,” Mildbrand said. He noted the human services department has already had an increase of four staff members in the past year which he noted is a 10% increase in one year.

He said the county’s population is not growing and questioned if the need for this was growing.

“The need for all our services is growing,” Stanfley said.

Committee member Mike Bub supported adding the position, seeing it as a way to get a fully funded position and bring in an additional $10,000 to $16,000 a year which will help offset other departmental expenses. “Any income is better than no income,” he said.

Mildbrand said he was gun-shy noting the county got burned by the ADRC of the Northwoods promise to refund an advance on funding, but did not get their money back. “This is too much of a risk for me,” he said.