 Welcome to Sheboygan County government working for you. This is our monthly TV show bringing you the services and the different departments of Sheboygan County. And in our effort to bring all these departments to you, last month we had our highway department and this month we're featuring the health and human services department. Along with me today, to my right Adam Payne, administrative coordinator who also is the host of the show and the director of health and human services, Gary Johnson and Anne Wundergem, the manager of the division of social services, all these long titles. Keep these straight. So today we're going to be talking about health and human services. Later on in the show, a little more specifically about some of the services that we offer during winter months, we started out last month with snow plowing and things like that as the winter months were approaching and we immediately got snow. So I think it's important that we start talking about these other services that are provided to the residents of Sheboygan County. But why don't we start Gary by just telling us a little bit about yourself as a director and a little bit about the department. Well, thank you, Dan. Well, I received my master's degree many years ago from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and social work and started my career in Clark County in Neilsville, Wisconsin. Became the director in 1969, I believe, already. And I start this off because right now I have a distinction, I don't know if it's a distinction or not, is that I'm the most senior director in the state of Wisconsin, not the oldest director. So I was going to clarify, I'm probably watching about the most senior. Not the oldest, but I have been a director longer than any other director in the state of Wisconsin this time. So I'm kind of proud of that fact. But then I went to St. Croix County and became the health and human services director over in New Richmond, which also included running the county nursing home. And then the history was Sheboygan County. In 1988, I believe, the Sheboygan County Board decided to form a committee to study whether or not they should become a human services agency. And so the county board members and staff of the several departments went around to different counties and ultimately decided that they would like to become a human services department. So in 1988, they started advertising for their first director. And I interviewed in November of 1988. And I always have to have to tell stories that I know you're worried about the kind of stories I might tell, but this is a good story. And so I came over for my interview. And there was several, you know, the whole committee, plus the personnel director, and they sat around this big conference table and they went through the questions. And at the end, they said, Gary, do you have any questions? Well, I said, I do have one. And I'd stayed here the night before and I'd bought the Sheboygan County Press. And I read it, you know, I'm very closely, and there was this big article. The county board had met, finalized their budget. And Mr. Feltcher at the time had made a motion and it was adopted unanimously to eliminate the new human services director's salary. And that was it. So I said, well, I do have one question. I lifted up the press and I said, what about this little item? And they all laughed. And they said, well, if you do get the job, it'll be your job. First job is to find enough money to pay yourself. And ultimately I was fortunate enough that they did offer me the job. And I became Sheboygan County's first health and human services director back in 1989, 1989, January 1. And you're still looking for money to cover your services. And they still do that to me. That's correct. So that's your background, but what about the department? I'll just give us a little background of how the department is running the services you provide. Okay, in the state of Wisconsin, all human services departments, they develop the statutes for all our various programs, whether it be public health, aging, community programs and social services. So we're state supervised and county administered. And so we have to meet the mandates. We're an extension of the state government. However, it's always been a battle as the human services is that the state makes these mandates on us. However, they never seem to give us quite enough funds to meet those mandates. And so then therefore the county gets very much involved with the, in support of our many programs that we do have. How many people do you have, how many employees do you have in your department? Okay, we, first of all, I wanna say we really have an excellent staff. Sheboygan County I think is blessed with hardworking people in all the areas that I've been experienced with. And I've got a very dedicated staff and I have about 194 employees. 194. And that's a lot. We could always use more of course, but in fact we did have many more when I first started, but through refinements over the years, we're now into 194 employees at this point. But they're a solid group and they do whatever they can to meet the needs of the people we serve. 194 employees and then a budget of how much? Our gross budget is not to the penny, just round it off. Okay, well just under $35 million. $35 million. And that's the total dollars and of course property taxes makes up about 12, not quite 12 million of that and the rest of the state in federal dollars and collections through medical assistance or third party insurance. So you have 194 employees, budget of over 30 million. This is split up into divisions. It's not just one, well it's one big department, but it's split up into divisions. Could you describe that a little bit? Sure. The way we have our department organized at this point and where it's always a process, when we get into human services, the whole idea was to consolidate and to integrate whatever services we have and to have less duplication and to be as efficient as possible with the dollars that are invested with us. And so at this point, we have it divided into four divisions. The Division of Social Services, the Office on Aging or the Division on Aging, the Division of Public Health and the Division of Community Programs. And in essence, we have a fifth. The Office, or? Administration. Well, administration, but economic support is a pretty big part of our program and that's of course located at the job center. When I say it's a process because the goal when I was hired as a director in running human services, like I said, is to integrate and to some people that need our services, it should be seamless to them and not have to worry about all the many, many programs that we run. If they need service, that's up to us to try to figure out how to get to them as smoothly as possible. And some of the things that we've done, for instance, is our long-term support unit that used to be under the Old Social Services Department. We transferred that whole unit and put it under the community programs and we found that that is much more successful in serving the elderly and the development disabled in our community. So you have four divisions and you run one of the divisions, Division of Social Services. Right. Maybe you could just give us a little background on yourself and some of your responsibilities with that division. Okay. I've been an employee of Schwagen County since 1979. I started at the Comprehensive Healthcare Center as Volunteer Services Coordinator and I did recreational and occupational therapy. In 1980, I went under contract with Schwagen County and began grant writing and assisting the county in implementing the Community Youth and Family Aids Program. Eventually worked with the county in implementing the Community Options Program. And then from there became a full-time county employee and have supervised the Division of Social Services since 1989. So some of these programs that you were a part of earlier were in the Health and Human Services area? Correct. Okay. Juveniles, you do work with juveniles. Could you explain some of those programs a little bit? Right, we have a number of services. Juvenile justice is a key area. Children ages 10 through 17 are considered part of the juvenile justice system to give everyone in the audience an idea of what we mean. A young person who may be true and from school is considered part of that juvenile justice population. They would be referred by a school district to us and we would look at what services would be necessary to assist that young person. The Juvenile Justice Code is there to protect the community. I'm sure when you read in the paper many times, vandalism, theft, car theft, burglary, many of our young people are experiencing problems in the home, in school, in the community that bring them to the detention of the division. And we're responsible then to work with the district attorney's office and work with the courts in what's most appropriate to hold that young person accountable for their actions and maintain safety in the community. And you talk about the schools. These are the school districts throughout Sheboygan County. Correct, we serve all Sheboygan County residents and I think that's important to understand. Unlike law enforcement jurisdictions, all Sheboygan County residents are served by our department. And now these are juveniles, you said the age is, what, 10 to 17? 10 to 17. What about younger children on that if there's problems in the home? Chapter 48 does also require us, and Gary talked about mandates before and I think that's important to understand. The services we provide are all mandated services. We don't have the luxury anymore of providing non-mandated services. So when we talk about services to younger children, we actually provide services prior to birth all the way through basically death because we do also provide for assistance in the burial process. When we talk about younger children, typically we're talking about child abuse and neglect. And when we look at that, our referrals in that case come from mandated reporters. Mandated reporters include educators, physicians, dietitians, nurses. So our referrals come in through a mandated reporter and we have an obligation then to ensure that a child is safe in their own home. We look at the physical safety, we do investigations into sexual abuse and neglect cases. I know in a community of our size, people tend to look more at the high profile sexual abuse cases and 30% of our referrals are for sexual abuse. The most difficult case for us to deal with is the neglect case where we get the constant phone calls about the house being dirty, dog or cat feces in the home, that the children are not kept clean, that the children are constantly ill. Those aren't high profile cases. They're difficult because it's based on community standards. And community standards are often higher than the standard for actual legal jurisdiction in abuse and neglect cases. So what you or I may consider unhealthy living conditions would not meet legal jurisdiction for child abuse and neglect. So we do a lot of community education around what is child abuse and neglect. I know that you aren't prepared to answer this question, but I'm gonna ask you anyway, do you have any indication of, or just off the top of your head, the numbers of cases that we're talking about, both in juvenile and children? Approximately. Just on the ballpark. What we've seen is kind of an averaging right now in child abuse and neglect cases that we receive approximately 1,800 referrals annually. 1,800 referrals. Now that's not 1,800 child victims. The victims are always slightly higher than 1,800. If we get a referral on a neglect case, it's not just one child in that house, there may be six children. So the actual victims are often higher. Now that's just referrals that need to be investigated. When we complete the assessment and investigation, many times we find out that it doesn't constitute child abuse and neglect. Family may be referred out for services at a private counseling agency, or we'll try to link them with community supports. We substantiate in about 40% of the cases that child abuse and neglect actually occurred, okay? In juvenile justice, we are right now this year at about 1,300 referrals. And if things proceed as they do in the past, we'll be around 1,500 referrals. So that's approximately 30 referrals per week for both the juvenile and the neglect. Correct. That's surprising. Or maybe it isn't surprising for you, but... The surprising part is when I go back to 1980, which was the first year of mandated reporting for child abuse and neglect, the county received 80 referrals in 1980. In the year. In one year, in one calendar year. Our high point was right around 1985, and we had over 2,000 referrals. So what's nice to see is a leveling off. And I think part of that is there's a better understanding in terms of what really is abuse and neglect. What to report, what not to report. Right. And do that through community education. I'm gonna ask you a question. Sure. That's fair play. Question that's... What's fair play is I don't have to answer. But you can at least try. Question that we typically get when we're out in the community is when is a child old enough to be left home alone? And as a parent... You're gonna ask me that? I'm gonna ask you... My children are definitely old enough to be left home alone. May I ask you, sorry to add on. Because my youngest is 20-something years old. Right. That's a good question. I have an eight to six and a four-year-old. I would, leaving a child home alone, I would say at least 12. Makes sense. Our answer is legally you could be held responsible for child abuse and neglect through age 17. 17. Would we ever do it? Probably not. 12 is always a good age to recommend due to the fact that most children at that age have been through a childcare babysitting class. But you could have a child who has developmental delays who's 12 years of age that you could not leave home alone. And legally we would have a right. We would have jurisdiction to do an assessment in that case. We use the example of I have a 10-year-old and my mother lives next door and my child can spend an hour after school home alone knowing that grandma's there right next door. Because she may be mature enough. If something happened, I could still be charged, but it's not against the law. People often ask, is it against the law to spank a child? No, it's not. Physical discipline is not against the law. But if that spanking leads to frequent and severe bruising, then we have CPS or Child Protective Services jurisdiction. So even though the law is there, it still requires certain standards of operation in terms of always assessing what really is appropriate. 12 may be appropriate. In one case, it may not be appropriate. Another case. One of the, before you ask me another question, we're gonna go on here. One of the other programs that we've heard a lot about in the last few years is W-2. Right. And Shabuigan is one of the counties that is handling and taking care of W-2 for this area. Could you just describe that program a little bit and the success we've had? W-2 is a replacement for aid for families with dependent children. AFDC as it was known back then was an entitlement program which meant you received a check if you were a single parent with children. Under the W-2 program, you no longer receive an entitlement check. You are involved in some type of work activity or some type of employment related activity to obtain a job in order to receive a W-2 check. So if your employment plan is to attend job readiness workshops 20 hours a week and then spend 10 hours a week in employment search activities and you don't complete all 30 hours, you don't receive a full W-2 check. Right now, Shabuigan County is looking at six performance factors that are mandated by the state. Our November report shows that we are exceeding in all six of the bonus performance standards. That includes the wage at the time a person is placed in a job. It includes job retention. Our people stay in their jobs 30 days, 60 days, 180 days. So we look at a number of factors in terms of what is happening. We are seeing a slight increase as is the rest of the state in the W-2 caseload. It's going up slightly. Part of that in Shabuigan County is due to the Bosnian and Albanian refugee population that is moving into the community. The positive part of that is they are obtaining employment very quickly upon their arrival in the community. So it's a short-term type of process. The staff out there does an excellent job in working with people to help them understand that employment is very, very important. What we're working on now is to move from not just getting them employed, but to assist them in proving their skills. So if we have a downturn in the economy, that they can maintain employment. I'd like to add that this is one program that we were allowed to make a profit, which the county government, you don't usually talk about profit very often. And this particular program, we were allowed to make a profit and indeed the staff were very successful. And this year I think it was like $450,000. Now that kind of profit will not be in the future, because the state now and their new contracting with the counties have tightened up the amount that you can make, obviously. But they didn't know when they first did the contract, and we did very well. And we're glad that the county allowed us to be the administering agency for W-2. There's some counties, the board said, no, we don't want anything to do that. Well now those counties are kinda wishing they would have stayed in it for at least the first couple of years, because they lost out a lot of money. And as Gary said, our key is in 2002, being able to make an informed recommendation to the board, should we continue administering the W-2 program? I can appreciate if our viewers are swimming a little bit in information, because this is one of the most challenging departments I think to administer and operate in county government. It's our largest of 23 departments, a $35 million operating budget, four divisions, as you heard, and a tremendous breadth of programs and very significant and valuable services that are provided. It's the holiday season. It's December. If you haven't zoomed in already on Gary Johnson's tie, I encourage you to do so. It's a special time of the year. We enjoy this time of the year. And one of the questions I have for you is, do we have any special programs that the department helps coordinate during the holiday months? We sure do. I'll start out with the first one. The office on aging started a program in conjunction with the Shiboyan County Press way back in 1987. And it's called Share the Spirit. And the Shiboyan County Press, they take care of the advertising, the marketing, and collecting the money. The office on aging deals with the elderly and the development disabled that are less fortunate than others in a need that maybe he wouldn't get a Christmas present or has some special wish that they would like. And we then make those wishes known. The Shiboyan County Press puts them in the paper. And then individuals or organizations read that wish. And if they so desire, they can make that wish come true. And so as an example, last year, I think over 90 wishes were fulfilled and over $6,000 was collected. And the wishes, mostly for Christmas, but the wishes might be delayed. For instance, a wish might be for an elderly gentleman that they want to go fishing for a day. And in fact, that was one of the wishes. And then it was a range for him to be taken on a fishing trip. It might mean a plate of Christmas cookies. It might mean a new Christmas dress. It might be, can somebody take me out to eat to a restaurant? You know, or a weekly visit would be nice. And that's their wish. And so those 90 wishes were granted last year and it brought a lot of smiles and some tears and tears of joy. But it was, it's just a great feeling to see how the community responds to the various needs of the people that we come in contact with. So that's one of them. Ann, I know you had another program that you wanted to mention. Right. At this time of the year, of course, there's many families and children who are less fortunate. And through our volunteer services position, we work with tons of community agencies, organizations, and individuals who provide us with toys for children, clothing for adults. We have knitting groups that get together and actually knit matching hats, scarves, mittens for adults and children. Food baskets are distributed. As I was leaving the building to come here today, our volunteer coordinator was coming in with another significant donation. Just as an example, one of our large corporations sets up in their atrium tables and all their employees donate gifts of toys and clothing. This is available to all the divisions in the department. So if we have a single individual with a mental health issue who is in need of something, they can access that to make the Christmas season a little bit better for them. Last year, as an example, a grandmother who was caring for her granddaughter really had very limited resources and came in and was able to provide for her grandchild gifts for Christmas. And the relative is aware of who is getting it, but for the children, they see that coming from their parent or their grandparent. So we greatly encourage the community, not only to look at us as a resource for needy children and families, but the Salvation Army and the Christmas Service Committee because we coordinate with them and make sure that no child or family goes without during this holiday season. Now I understand in October we have a special fundraiser. How is that coordinated and what are those funds used for? We are probably one of the counties that is more fortunate than others. About six years ago, Reed and Sharon Sampsel, just members of the Sheboygan community, decided that they wanted to raise money for abused and neglected children. And they put on a fundraiser, unbeknownst to us, and came in with a check and we set up a Child Abuse Neglect Fund. You'll like this, Dan, because it avoids the county red tape. If we have a child who needs a school picture because they were just temporary placed at the land, or if we have a child who, because of being temporary placed out of the home, needs to go on a school trip and any other type of need, we're able to access that money to benefit children who have been abused and neglected. This last year, their fundraiser brought in over $6,000. We're not involved at all. We put a post-trip for them. Marty Bonk, one of the social work supervisors, typically represents the department and stops in during the fundraiser, but throughout the years, they have contributed close to $30,000 to that Child Abuse Neglect Fund. And they do it out of the goodness of their heart and pay for all the publicity and advertising costs. Outstanding, that's outstanding. Now with the holiday season also comes cold temperatures, wind, ice, and it can be more difficult for our elderly residents to get around the community. Do we have any special programs targeted at helping our elderly? The division on aging or office on aging does quite a bit, including the transportation service and meals on wheels and of course the food sites. So that occurs throughout the year, but definitely at this time of the year, we sometimes see a slight increase in the use of some of those services. The other service that operates basically October through May 15th is our energy assistance program. That benefits not only the elderly, but anyone who would be considered low income. And you're gonna have to excuse me because I don't do this. The W-2 Economic Support Staff does. So they gave me a handout so I can make sure the information we share is accurate. Just to give you an example, Adam, a family size of two who would have a household income the last three months of $4,218 would be eligible for an energy assistance grant. So what we're talking about is that at any time, during what we consider the heating season, October 1st through May 15th, families that are low income can come in and apply. It's a one-time payment and the average grant for household is $414. When you consider elderly people living on a fixed income, often in their own homes with increases in property taxes, we do encourage them to participate in this program. It's fairly easy. I know we have a lot of information there to share and we're running out of time and there's a couple of questions that we wanna ask yet. Who could our viewers call if they wanna get more information on that program? All they have to do is call 208-5946. That's the main number for the energy assistance program and some will answer the phone between eight and five and provide them with the information they need. Excellent, thank you. I have one final question before turning it back to the chairman. We've heard a lot about the flu vaccinations that are gonna be going on or how to get flu vaccine. What's going on? What's the present status of being able to get flu shots and where do we go? Okay, as you have all heard and you've heard the reason for the question is that there was a shortage this year and I wanna say that again, our public health department worked with the community health nurses, the local physicians and also corporations. Kohler and Lear Corporation gave a good share of their vaccine for us to get out to those in most need, which was people like in the nursing homes and with people with heart problems. We now, everybody now has enough vaccine. So where do you go? You go to your private physician, if you wish and then you make an appointment or call either one of the community home nursing, VNA or community home nursing and they're having clinics throughout the county and you just have to find out where their clinic is and just show up and you'll get your vaccination. As a county employee, Adam, I'd be glad that we are giving them in our office at the Human Services Building and I would be glad to give you your vaccination myself if you come over and we're doing them yet today as a matter of fact. That sounds just wonderful, I'd appreciate it. As long as I can give you yours as well. I already had one, I'm sorry, but that's where it's, we're all in good shape at this point and it was nice to see how the community again worked together to make sure that the highest priority received their vaccination first. But this last week we're in good shape. Good to hear. Well thank you Gary and Ann for coming on our show today and we've got all kinds of more information that we were planning on covering today. We'll have to get you back for another show later on. But we do have 23 departments that we wanna feature and we've only been doing this for six or seven months so we've got about 15 to go yet. Next month, we're going to feature, and I'm gonna have to read this department because I always get this one wrong, the Shabuake County UW Extension Community Resource Department, commonly called UW Extension. And Dave Satch, the head of that department is gonna be with us and we'll be talking about that department and the services that they provide to Shabuake County. And I just wanted to thank the viewers for watching again and if you have any questions or if you have any comments, please give us a call. We don't have a phone number to give you but call the County Administrator's office, County Chairman's office and we'd be happy to hear from you and your comments on the show. Thank you.