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HomeMy WebLinkAbout3-16-2026 MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF SOCIAL SERVICES March 16,2026 THE ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF SOCIAL SERVICES MET ON MONDAY: March 16th, at the Orange County Department of Social Services at 113 Mayo Street, Hillsborough, NC 27278. BOARD OF SOCIAL SERVICES MEMBERS PRESENT: Oscar Fleming, Jamezetta Bedford, and Jane Garrett GUEST: None BOARD OF SOCIAL SERVICES MEMBERS ABSENT: Chris Barnes and Ann Wilkerson STAFF PRESENT: Lindsey Shewmaker, Social Services Director; Crystal Wiese, Assistant Director; Sharron Hinton, Assistant Director; Rebekah Rapoza, Fiscal Operations Manager; Lakecia Robbins, Economic Services Program Manager; and Brittany Mann, Child Welfare Program Manager I. Call to Order and Introductions DSS Chair, Oscar Fleming, called the meeting to order at 4:02 pm. II. Board Comments Oscar Fleming presented the DSS workplan to the Board of County Commissioners at the March 101n meeting. III. Public Comments None. IV. Agenda Changes None. V. Action Items On a motion by Jamezetta Bedford, the Board approved the meeting minutes from February 2026. Jane Garrett seconded the motion. The motion was carried without dissent. VI. Items for Discussion and/or Decision 1. Child Abuse Prevention Month Brittany Mann, Child Welfare Program Manager, gave the Board an update on Child Abuse Prevention Month and agency plans. Staff will be attending the County Commissioners meeting tomorrow evening for the presentation of a proclamation recognizing Child Abuse Prevention Awareness Month. We have a small committee at DSS who is working on awareness efforts, and the county's public information office is assisting with social media campaigns. We have developed a flyer with a QR code that will link to the DSS website to learn about available resources (gun safety and safe sleep) and it will be shared countywide in public spaces. We are also going to deliver a collection of pinwheels, the symbol of child abuse prevention, to county departments to be planted outside their offices. Historically the pinwheel planting has been a DSS effort, but this year we are engaging other county departments to plant pinwheels and to participate in Wear Blue Day on April 10. We will also be participating as a vendor at Family Fun Day at the Sportsplex on April 1 MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF SOCIAL SERVICES March 16,2026 11, providing information/resources, gun locks, medication lock boxes, pinwheels, and fun activities for kids. 2. Child Welfare Updates Crystal Wiese, Assistant Director, updated the Board on PATH NC. PATH NC is the new child welfare technology system that we are transitioning into with a go live date of April 27, 2026. We will be one of the last 11 counties for intake and assessments, but one of the first 11 for in-home, foster care, adoptions, licensing, and LINKS. There are lots of trainings staff will need to complete for the new system, and the State is also rolling out new policies at the same time. Some of the policy changes for intake are leading to a higher number of immediate response referrals. This doesn't change the number or flow of cases but will require a much quicker turnaround for initiations. It could potentially have impacts on our initiation rates that have historically been good; with the new policy it will require workers to drop everything and go more often. We have seen with other counties with vacancies this quick turnaround is presenting a problem. Most staff will average 7 full days of training, and some will need 12 full days depending on what program area they are in. There are lots of training expectations for April, and at the same time we are also working on data cleanup for conversion. Final readiness meeting with DHHS is scheduled for next week to ensure we are prepared for the implementation. So far, we are on track and really like what we have seen from the product. Counties have had different levels of systems, some paper, some standalone case management systems. PATH NC will help counties see if cases have crossed county lines and will help make sure nothing falls through the cracks, especially for the more mobile families. We have been in CWIS since 2018, and all of our data will convert over since that time. For new counties, it will be day forward, so no historical information beyond seeing that a family had a case in another county. So far, we haven't seen or heard any downsides to the system; there is always a learning curve and some glitches, but when there are, they are being addressed timely. 3. FIR 1 Updates Lindsey Shewmaker provided a short update on HR 1. There are no major changes but policy changes continue to roll out. Counties in NC have fully implemented the program and eligibility changes for FNS. DHHS at the state level continues to work on the payment error rate that will ultimately determine how much the state will have to pay for benefits. The state is providing onsite technical assistance for counties with higher errors rates. We are not one which is good because we are not considered high risk, but it sounds like the services being provided are good and it is something we would be interested in receiving. We are right now in the middle of the second year that the federal government can use to determine the error rates. Orange County doesn't have an error rate but based on the number of cases that were pulled, we would be at 50%. It all depends on how many of our cases are pulled for review. They are also doing some work on technology to try to decrease areas where some of those errors are in. FNS administrative reimbursement rate will decrease from 50% to 25% in October. We are doing preemptive work in that space, including sending an email to Travis and Gary requesting to expedite the CAP plan if we can get it approved and in before October and looking at frontloading purchasing in the first 3 months to get the larger reimbursement rate. All the Medicaid changes are coming later this year, and the state continues to get guidance from the federal government. For example, the new policies go into effort for cases that we start working in January for March recertification, instead of October for January recertifications. This gives the state more time to advocate to the general assembly for more funding for technology implantation and for counties. 2 MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF SOCIAL SERVICES March 16,2026 4. Outside Agency Applications DSS is reviewing 13 outside agency applications. Six of them are food security that are not technically with DSS, but we are able to provide feedback and ask questions. Lindsey Shewmaker provided a handout to the board that summarizes their approved funding for this year and next year's request along with a brief description of the proposed services. Starting with number 7, those are DSS specific organizations and those meetings are scheduled for next week. Volunteers for Youth and Exchange Club have questions about number of participants. Skjaja is new and seems really good, but looks like a duplication of youth enhancement program that we operate. Early Years has renamed themselves from Child Care Services Association and has a significant amount of overhead costs which is why we applied for the Smart Start funds. One of the concerns is that they say they have over 200 kids on their waiting list; we don't have a waiting list and are wondering where these kids are because we have funds and could be serving them. OWASA has an interesting funding request. They are trying to set up a system to offset costs on an ongoing basis for applicants at/below 200% federal poverty level and looking at this as a pilot program. This was brought to the Board of County Commissioners a year ago and they were inclined to not support this because it seemed very selective/small subset of the county residents. Not sure how this will be treated as they do not meet the 501 c3 criteria. DSS likes the concept but is also concerned about the equity as it serves a small subset of the concept. Piedmont Electric Helping Hand Foundation is also a duplication of services of our utility assistance program. We will share the final scorecards but it won't be until April, and will also provide the managers recommendations. 5. Director's Report DSS still has 22 vacancies as of last Tuesday but are making good progress. We have our budget meeting with the County Manager tomorrow and should have a better sense of what that will look like and hopefully have updates next month. We have asked them if we need to make bigger cuts to please let us know and have input in what to cut because there are a lot of nuisances to our budget and revenues. We have had serious issues with staffing in Medicaid units and a lot of it started when the hiring freeze was put in place in December. This freeze has led to a snowball effect of resignations due to increased workloads. March is employee appreciation month and one of things we do as an agency is to plan out weekly things for staff. This is funded by supervisors, managers and Friends of DSS. We do a little gift giveaway each week (ink pens, bag of chips, self-care items, and keyboard duster/screen cleaner) with a little thank you card. Our theme this year is March Madness, and we try to tie that in with everything we do. Everyone received a door sign and last Friday there was a concession theme lunch that included food and games from 12-2. We continue to work with Allies40utcomes on leadership development with some one-on-one coaching and have had some really positive feedback. Last month was Black History Month and one of things we hosted was a talk about historical trauma by Paul Slack of Office of Civil Rights and Civic Life. We are going to invite Paul back to speak at an all-staff meeting. We had a follow-up meeting with Carol Conway, who spoke with the board a couple months ago about IDD resources. Crystal is working on finding a good training resource for our staff on working with individuals with intellectual disabilities. 3 MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF SOCIAL SERVICES March 16,2026 We are hosting a job fair with the Department on Aging on April 13 at Seymour Center. The target audience is adults aged 55+ to help them meet new FNS work requirements. VII. Announcements None. Jane Garrett moved to adjourn the meeting at 5:10 pm. Jamezetta Bedford seconded the motion. The motion was carried without dissent. Submitted by: Lindsey Shewmaker, DSS Director Oscar Fleming, Chair 4