Human Services yet again looking at cutting “non-mandated services” in favor of “mandated services” which of course includes cutting all housing and homelessness programs which are “non-mandated”.
When asked directly at the Homeless Services Consortium, Lynn Green said they didn’t mean they would cut homeless services, but she ultimately doesn’t make the decisions, the county board does. I interpret that to mean, nothing is safe.
I wanted to alert you that the Health & Human Needs Committee is going to have an agenda item on their upcoming agendas to educate themselves on mandated and non-mandated services in each Division of the Department. They are doing this in preparation for the upcoming 2016 budget formulation.
As you know, the Baker Tilly POS Contract Process Assessment recommended that “Contracts should be fully funded to cover core services and existing service levels.” Recommendation Details were: “The Dane County Board of Supervisors should prioritize which programs and services will be funded each year. This should be based upon the identified service priorities in the areas, including core services DCDHS is mandated to provide.”
In order to move forward on this recommendation, H&HN is beginning an education process and discussion about these priorities. Each Division will present current Mandate Ranking information at upcoming meetings. The first of these will be Tuesday night when we present that information for the Children, Youth and Families Division. The agenda and materials for that meeting are on this link: https://dane.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=397337&GUID=753AD28D-1713-4A56-8F9F-468032B14AF9&Options=info|&Search=
POS agencies are encouraged to attend meetings that relate to their area. There will be an opportunity for comment at each meeting. I urge you to follow upcoming H&HN’s agendas on Legistar for similar agenda items pertaining to the ACS, EAWS, BPHCC, and Administration Divisions. Please let me know if you have questions about this.
Lynn 🙂
