Supervisors: Layoffs in Linn County supported living program unavoidable

Some of the 16 full-time and six part-time Linn County helping-services employees with union jobs on the chopping block asked the Board of Supervisors Monday to consider an employee proposal to keep some of their jobs working with the mentally ill in place.

However, Mechelle Dhondt, director of Linn County's Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities program, told the supervisors that the employees' proposal, which called in part for keeping about 10 employees, would not be sufficient to cover the state cut in payments to the county's Supported Community Living Program.

Supervisor Linda Langston said Gail Dyslin, one of the employees whose position is slated for elimination, was correct when Dyslin said the county's good wages and benefits have created an experienced, knowledgeable work force that, in the end, will be the employees' and the program's “downfall.”

A few of the employees at the supervisors' Monday morning work session teared up when it became clear that the supervisors said they had little choice but to turn the program over to non-profit and private-sector providers who generally pay lower wages.

“It's sad, horribly, horribly sad,” the 51-year-old Dyslin, with 30 years on the job, said after the meeting.

Dhondt spelled out the dollar figures for the supervisors and employees, noting that Linn County has been getting a special exception from the state of Iowa so it has been able to charge $78.62 an hour for the services provided to help support the mentally ill and developmentally disabled through the county's Supported Community Living Program.

However, Dhondt explained that the state of Iowa now has transferred the program management to Magellan, a for-profit health management firm. Magellan representatives, she said, have indicated that they don't plan to keep Linn County's exception in place, but instead will make the transition beginning on July 1 to pay the county the rate of $46.70 an hour.

The new rate will leave Linn County with a budget shortfall of between $470,000 and $560,000 a year, Dhondt said. She noted, too, that providers of supported community living services in Polk, Dubuque and Johnson counties all deliver services at or under Magellan's $46.70-an-hour cap and nearly all do in Scott and Story counties.

Abbe Center for Community Mental Health is among other providers in Linn County that offer similar services, and Abbe currently received $59.74 an hour. The others charge $46.70 or less, Dhondt noted. She added that Abbe may continue to be able to charge more because its staff members have four-year degrees, which is one argument for a higher rate, she said. However, Linn County's program generally does not have employees with four-year degrees, she said.

Langston noted that the county can only use local funds from its property-tax levy for mental health and development disability services to help pay for those services and can't use money from the county's general fund or roads fund to cover shortfalls in the MHDD budget.

Dhondt said the county's Supported Community Living Program caseload currently stands at 108 clients, and she suggested that the county look at a phased transition of those clients to other local provides, a process that might take six months, she said. Abbe, Builders of Hope, Cedar Valley Community Support Services, Goodwill and The Arc provide the services in the community, she said.

Langston said Linn County's good wages and benefits have created a work force that “other providers dream about.” Dhondt agreed, saying that Linn County's staff members go into tough areas where some other providers have been unwilling to go.

However, she said Linn County's Mental Health/Developmental Disability Advisory Committee now has voted to end the program by Oct. 31. The supervisors indicated Monday that they will do the same, and on Tuesday, they will take a formal vote.

Langston said she has brought the demise of the program to the attention of Linn County's contingent in the Iowa Legislature. She understood the state's need to cut spending, she said, but she called the elimination of the county's program the “unintended consequences” of spending cuts.

Supervisor Lu Barron said it was “very hard” to eliminate a program when the Linn employees in the program had done a good job.

But Langston added, “Whether I like it or not, … I just don't know where we're going to get $500,000 to fill the gap.”

Monica Tate, one of the county employees whose position is slated to be eliminated, asked the supervisors to give the employees six months to a year to get the program's finances in line with about half as many employees. The “longevity” of the employees and “consistency” of the services they provide made the program worth saving, she said. She said lower-paying programs result in too much employee turnover.

Dyslin told the supervisors that she was a taxpayer, too, and wanted a chance to make the Linn County program “accountable.”