HomeMy WebLinkAboutC.054.93009_0552 (2)with Mr. Boone, and he questioned whether education was the answer.
Boone added the federal government had made it a major enterprise
to try to convince people not to smoke cigarettes, but people take
up this habit every year.
Commissioner Hamby said that everyone knows how much personnel
costs, but the health staff knows how many STD cases are in the
county. She said it was owed to the community to help try to
correct the problem.
616 SOCIAL SERVICES: The social services director, Don Wall,
attended the meeting. Commissioner Hamby mentioned the county's
unemployment rate was less than three percent. She wondered why
the budget for social services was increasing. Commissioner
Stewart said there were too many social problems to try to put a
handle on anything. Wall stated that one of the problems is that
people are employed; however, they're underemployed. The wages
they earn still doesn't place them out of the poverty level.
There's more people on food stamps than ever, and there's more
people getting food stamps today who are working. The government
raises the level of eligibility from year to year. Some of the
programs of social services are leveling off, e.g. AFDC. Medicaid
is increasing because of the cost of medical care.
Commissioner Boone said the social services problem really starts
in Washington, D.C. Commissioner Stewart said some of the problems
start in the community, and that years ago churches and families
picked up the tab that society is paying for today.
Commissioner Boone said that welfare in his opinion is one of the
reasons for the breakup of the family. Some people can truly not
help themselves, and it's a concensus of the government to provide
a safety net for them. However, for most of the AFDC people and a
lot of other people, it's basically people who do not want to work.
As Jack Kemp said, "If you pay people to be poor, you're going to
have a lot of poor people." This is what Washington has done. If
you subsidize something, you get more of it, and if you tax it, you
get less of it. We subsidize illegitimacy, and then we tax work
and productivity.
Commissioner Boone asked about the six new positions. He wanted to
know if there was a possibility of fines arising out of not adding
the new positions.
Mr. Wall said he didn't see a problem with fines; however, the
quality of care in protective services and foster care might be
endangered. According to CPS standards, it is recommended that a
child protective supervisor only supervise five workers. In the
Iredell County Protective Service Dept., they have one supervisor
overseeing nine employees. Wall said they had a biannual
evaluation of the CPS program recently (the state is doing this
every two years), and Iredell County was cited as an exemplary
county. However, the ratio between the supervisor and the
supervisees was off base by a wide margin.
Commissioner Boone asked Commissioner Stewart's comments on the
requested positions. Stewart responded that the Social Services
Board approved each of the positions. Basically, documentation
warranted the need for the extra personnel. This board listens to
program reports each month, so they have a pretty good idea of day-
to-day operations. She stated the CPS unit and the Foster Care
Program have a great deal of stress and demand placed upon them.
One problem is that foster parents are not being paid enough, and
it's difficult to recruit them. There's children being transported
out of this county which is costly. More and more teenagers are
being involved, and there's not that many people that want to deal
with this age level.
Commissioner Hamby asked if the teenagers didn't go to group homes.
Mr. Wall responded that some go to group homes; not necessarily
because of the age. There's only about 25 foster homes in the
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