Supervisors launch Options of Linn County Task Force

A newly created Options of Linn County Task Force will hold its introductory meeting on Thursday to study the future financial challenges of the agency that serves about 250 with challenging intellectual and physical disabilities.

The meeting will start at 2 p.m. at the Linn County Community Service Building, 1240 26th Ave. Ct. SW.

Linn supervisors John Harris and Ben Rogers on Wednesday said the task force will include county officials and other area providers of services to the disabled.

Options of Linn County, which opened in 1966 and became a county department in 1969, is not in any immediate threat of closing. The supervisors said the task force will allow them time to review options for the Options program in a thoughtful way over many months.

The program operates on federal and state funds, and both the federal and state government are contemplating setting a fixed payment rate for such helping-services programs based on the average costs at similar facilities.

Those average costs are lower than costs at Options of Linn County in large part because the Linn County program features higher-paid, long-term employees while other programs often have lower-paid employees and much employee turnover.

State rules prevent Linn County from using local tax dollars to beef up funding for mental health programs and those for the developmentally disabled, Rogers said.

Harris said the supervisors believe they have a "long-standing charter to take care of those least able to take care of themselves."

It's too early to know, he said, if the Options task force may end up presiding over an orderly transition to a new program arrangement based on expected financial realities.

Options runs a sheltered workshop and a day rehabilitation program.