Steele officials contemplate future of social services

Eight years ago, Steele County officials joined a small consortium hoping to save some money on the cost of providing human services.

They say now that hasn’t panned out, and the Minnesota Prairie Alliance–known as MN Prairie–has asked for significantly more money over the past several years. Also, officials say they cannot get answers to questions about why services are getting so expensive.

MN Prairie’s work covers health care, income and food assistance, child support, children and family services, mental health, substance use, and services to people with disabilities and seniors.

The consortium was originally proposed in 2012 with 12 counties. Only three–Steele, Waseca, and Dodge–eventually signed onto the Joint Powers Agreement (JPA). Three commissioners from each county serve on a governing board.

County administrator Scott Golberg told commissioners on Oct. 25 that the request for a discussion came during the MN Prairie All Commissioner meeting on Sept. 1.

“I think they’re just looking for what the pain points are,” he said.

He said issues that keep coming up include costs, governance, and philosophy and values–what the MN Prairie mission is and what it means in terms of the service level provided.

“Their current mission has the word ‘extraordinary’ in it,” Golberg said. “I think part of the feedback was, do we need to be going over and above what we’re required to do when we deliver these human services programs.”

He said the county provides both mandated and unmandated services, but each is evaluated on its own merits.

“I kind of feel like what precipitated this is, everything’s cost,” commissioner Jim Abbe said. “It’s forcing us really to ask these tough questions and look at what are the mandated and unmandated services, do they still make sense. We’ve asked that at MN Prairie… and we’re still, for lack of a better term, running up against a little bit of a wall to figure out exactly what costs are associated with those programs.”

Abbe said nobody is questioning the validity of the programs, “we just want to see the costs associated with it.”

Waseca County officials, Abbe said, believe they can save money by going off on their own. That would likely increase costs for the other two counties.

Commissioner Greg Krueger said while MN Prairie is a good program, it has not been responsive to the counties paying the bills.

“We’ve asked all of our department heads… to watch your dollars, watch your pennies, and we’ve kind of let MN Prairie get away with it for a few years,” he said, adding MN Prairie has come in with increases up to almost 9%. “That can’t continue.”

Krueger suggested a proposal that includes a budget cut and 3% reduction in personnel costs. “And their reserves, in my opinion, are way too high. They don’t need to be 43 and 44%… I just really think it’s time to pull back a bit and make them dig deep into their budget and make it work with a dollar amount that makes sense to all three counties.”

Commissioner Rick Gnemi felt the buck stops at the top with the executive director, but Abbe said the issue was the philosophy–and officials shouldn’t single out one person.

Krueger agreed and wanted to see the counties get some dollars back to use in areas like public health. He also felt the joint powers board has some responsibility and needs to be “more rigid” with what’s going on.

“I do think it’s a program that’s worth saving. It’s a good program, it just needs to be more responsive to the counties that it answers to,” he said.

But county attorney Daniel McIntosh pointed out Waseca County held “a major community forum” about lack of quality services and said he has written a letter to the board about child protection services MN Prairie provides.

“I just have a different perspective… on the service delivery side,” he said. “It is constant conflict with the administration. The individual workers do a good job for the most part, but there is a ton of turnover.”

McIntosh said while costs go up every year, “there aren’t answers why, and there isn’t a tie to increased costs to quality services. It’s hard to see what the benefit to Steele County is of being a part of this.”

He felt the quality “could be at least as good and more accountable if the service was in house.”

If Waseca County does decide to pull out, that could force Steele County’s hand–and there would be some pain in dissolving the JPA.

“It’s over two years to unwind it, and in the process you’ve got to start gearing your own department,” Krueger said, adding he would put public health and human services under one umbrella.

Comments from the Tuesday discussion will go back to the Joint Powers board, Golberg said.