Music guitar solo guitar solo guitar solo guitar solo guitar solo We will, We just have our quorum if Council Member Stenet agrees to fulfill that or complete that for us, and he's nodding in agreement. So we will begin with the Intergovernmental Committee for March 9th, and we have four items on our agenda today. I will list those just for anyone who wants to stay tuned. Social services needs assessment. is the first item. The second item on the agenda is creating one position of the administrative officer for Division of Youth Services, which will also fall under Social Services. And number three is the E911 Call Center Management. And number four is the Legal Bills Review Services. And I see folks here for that issue. Is there any discussion about the agenda before we begin? Okay. There is a possibility that we will not get to all of these items today. It's a pretty extensive conversation potentially for some of these, but we'll try to move forward, and I'll keep an eye on the time and just kind of bring folks aware at maybe 2 o'clock of how we are and whether we need to move along or if we just continue that discussion. So if you're watching or if you're here for one particular item that's down on the agenda, please know that we may or may not get to that today, but we're going to try our best to complete the full agenda. And we'll begin with the Social Services Needs Assessment, of which I referred to the committee. I referred this to committee, and council agreed to that. And Dr. Helm is here, and I just wanted to let you know that what this, or anyone watching as well, social services needs assessment, the social services division actually falls under the planning committee, but where the planning committee has had so many issues related to planning that needed urgent attention, they had not been able to have the presentation for the social services needs assessment, which was done quite a bit ago, March in 2008 was the report out of that. So Intergov wanted to give you that opportunity to give this presentation, and thank you for being with us today. Well, thank you very much for allowing me to come before you today to provide a very brief update of the needs assessment. As Council Member James stated, the actual needs assessment was conducted in August of 2007, And the workgroups then started at that time, and our final report was listed as of April 2008. We made available copies of the report. The report is pretty extensive because it not only has the recommendations and the issues, but for the most part it has the supporting documentation that each committee was asked to provide as part of their work. Just as a reminder, this is our mission statement for our department. We see ourselves as providing and supporting an accessible system of human services for our community. community. These are the values that we have identified for our department, and again, I just wanted to give you a little background as to who we are and some of the things that we do and how we go about doing our work. Some of the key recommendations from the report, And let me just remind you that we actually divided the work, those that participated. There were 300 strong that actually came out that wonderful warm evening at Bracktown. We divided those 300 into six work groups. We had the adult group, the cross-cutting issues, which was that, which was to pick up everything that didn't fall neatly into one of the other categories. We had a housing work group. We had a special needs work group, a young children work group, and a youth work group. What we recognized that evening and what we continue to recognize is that Lexington is very blessed. It has an array of social service agencies, faith-based organizations, civic organizations that are very committed to ensuring that Lexington remains a very vibrant, healthy community. And providing this social service safety net is very important, we believe. Dr. Helm. Yes. I don't want to get you messed up on your presentation, but it's been brought to my attention that there may be some present today and some folks watching who have no idea what the Social Services Needs Assessment was, how it came to be, and if you could give us a little bit of that background to help lead into the update of such. All right. Thank you. When, I guess in the early winter of 2007, so that's between January through March, we determined that we needed to give the community an opportunity to come forth and to identify and to be very specific about the needs in our community. What were we already providing, how well we were providing them, and then to identify the gaps. What we did not want to do was just to continue to provide services and programs with no focus. And so we invited the community to come, and I think we posed it as come and dream with us. If we could dream the very best for Lexington with regards to providing social services and that safety net, what would it be? What would it look like? And so we gathered, as I said, that evening to really look at the services that are currently provided, to look at the data and some statistics that would tell us what we needed, and to identify a map, if you will, that would say for not only government, because we made it very, very clear that this was a community-wide needs assessment. It was not a Department of Social Services needs assessment. We wanted this information to be used by a vast array of social service agencies in the community to give them a benchmark, if you will, to see if they were really providing the services that are needed or were they just continuing to provide services because they'd always provided those particular services. Hopefully that helped a little bit. Again, I told you about the six groups, and I want to just focus today on the key recommendations because we did have a number of them. The first one was a youth czar or a guru, if you will, of youth programming. And I'll talk a little bit more about that later because there was a real trend and I think a loud cry that we are not, as a community, perhaps providing as many programs and services for our youth, especially our adolescents. And we went to visit what I call the youth czar in Louisville. His name is Daryl. And Daryl actually then came to Lexington to visit with us. And what he shared with us is that most communities offer a lot of programs for very young children. You know, they have Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts and different church and religious affiliated groups. But a lot of times people in the community really don't provide programs and, to be real honest, sometimes don't want to have to deal with, as he put it, 200-pound young men with smart mouths. And so what they do in Louisville and what gave us the idea was that he said all youth programming come through his office. He provides technical assistance. He makes sure that he maintains a resource directory so that you don't have one portion of a community with lots of programs and another area with nothing. Or if you find something that is really good, can it be replicated? because all of our youth deserve an opportunity for those programs. What he also pointed out to us was that a lot of very well-intentioned individuals start programs for youth, but they don't know how to sustain them. And what he meant about that was either they don't keep up with their funding, they get so involved in the program side that they leave the financial piece to its own devices, and sometimes that will go down. And so, again, as we've looked and as we've done the research, the idea for having someone to really pull all of the youth programs together, it doesn't mean that we would operate them, it doesn't mean that we would fund them, but it means that we would have a way to share what they are, what ages they serve, what specifics they're trying to achieve, what are their outcomes, and if there is one or two or ten that are really, really good, and it's operating only, let's just say, in one district, then perhaps we could find a way to encourage when somebody would come in new. I get calls all the time about people wanting to start new youth programs, but they don't necessarily have a firm idea of what, where, how, and when. And sometimes they'll say, no, we want to do it here. And when I say, well, there's a real gap or there's a real need, let's just say in Woodhill, because we are focusing right now on Woodhill, they may say, well, that's just not an area of interest. We want to do it over here. And when you say, well, there's already three or four really strong programs there, would you consider going to Gainesway? Would you consider going to the Windburn area? And that's what Daryl said is really needed for a community to have strong youth programs. So a youth czar was one of our top recommendations. I mean, it was the very strongest recommendation. The second recommendation was a one-stop social services model. And you probably heard us talk about the neighborhood place concept. Councilman Blues actually went with a group to Louisville to visit the neighborhood place concept. It is a concept that involves a number of partners. and what it does is it provides for social service kinds of services to be within a community so that someone who's needing, let's just say, to get food stamps or to get case management, maybe they've got an out-of-control youth, rather than having to go to three or four different places to get the help that that family needs, they would come to the one-stop. neighborhood place, and that's just what Louisville happens to call it. We wouldn't have to call it that. And then all of the services that they would need for that community. And so a neighborhood place, let's say on, I'll just keep picking on the same areas again, a neighborhood place that's on 3rd Street might look and offer very, very different services than a neighborhood place that's in Cardinal Valley because the community is different and they would identify the needs that they would have. This concept is very dependent upon the state being a willing partner, like they are in Louisville. In fact, the eight sites in Louisville were employing over 500 people. So someone who lived in a neighborhood, instead of having to go to one really big place to apply for services, to get some support, could just simply go to their neighborhood place. In Louisville, some of those neighborhood places were in schools, and in some cases they actually either built or bought a particular facility to house that. What we found, and Councilman Blues probably remembers this, is that most of the neighborhood places, when you said, what do you most regret, most of them said, we thought too small. Because once you got started, it just really ramped up very heavily. Unfortunately, about the time that we were getting very excited about this concept, the budget woes for the state, for the schools, for other partners, the health department was very interested. We had a number of meetings, including with Austin Sims and the Housing Authority, talking about even having a kiosk in the neighborhood place so that someone who wanted to update or to register for Section 8 or for some other service wouldn't have to go all the way on to New Circle Road and to go to the main office. They could go to the kiosk within the neighborhood place and actually complete their application there. So we met a lot. We had a lot of conversations. And then because of the budget, we realized we finally had to just put it on hold for a while because the funding was just not there. The people in the back of the room having the conversation. Do you all mind if you either step out or go to the caucus room? It's echoing up here a little bit. Sorry, Dr. Hamm. That's no problem. Our next recommendation was a centralized rental assistance. What we found when we were doing the needs assessment was that we've got lots of people, lots of organizations, lots of churches providing rental assistance, and there's no centralized way to ensure that the limited resources are being fairly distributed. Because in some cases you've got the same individuals requesting help over and over again, and the churches and the other faith-based organizations, the civic organizations, really don't have a way to talk with one another, to share what are your guidelines, what are you seeing, what are your trends, how are you keeping record. And so there were a number of faith-based entities that actually approached the United Way that very year and asked if they would be willing to serve as their repository, because one of the faith-based entities actually said, we are doing this because of our heart. We don't really necessarily know how to do this the right way or the way that's the most effective or that makes the best use of those limited resources. We remain committed and believing that this is still something that Lexington very, very desperately needs, is a centralized way to make sure that we are providing the help that's needed, needed, but in a way that at the end of the year we could actually point to some statistics to tell you who we're helping. Are we helping 80 percent of the time, are we helping the same 20 percent? And are we giving people a fish for today so that they're back tomorrow, or are we actually giving them the tools that they can go and fish for themselves once we give them the support and the help that they need? The next item is a service provider summit. The evening of August 28, 2007, when you walked into the multipurpose room at Bracktown Church, it just sounded like a buzzsaw because most of the individuals that were there were social service providers. And yet the hum in the room, you would have thought that perhaps they had not seen one another in a long time. And in some cases they hadn't, but they really used the time to share. Oh, I didn't realize you had changed and we're now here. Oh, I didn't know that you had added that as a service, or I didn't know that your guidelines had changed. And so at the end of the work, it was actually the participants that said, you know, social service department, would you be willing to do this on a regular basis? You know, perhaps we could do this on an annual basis and actually let some of the providers showcase some of their services. And maybe we could actually have the summit at the place in which is providing that service. And so let's just say, for example, the Hope Center. The Hope Center continues to add new programs. They've got new buildings. Their guidelines are changing. and sometimes someone who refers someone to the Hope Center on not a regular basis may not be keeping up as much as some of us who do on a more regular basis. And so that was the thought behind that. The next one, independent living programs and services, we are very excited about that because one of the things we've done within our department is we have actually taken the position of aging services coordinator and made that position the Aging Services and Independent Living Program Administrator, which means that within urban county government, we now have an individual who is available and extremely knowledgeable to provide services to both individuals with disabilities and individuals who are aging. We want Lexington to be known as a community that is very welcoming and comfortable for those who are aging, which is something that we're all doing, even as we sit here today. Some of the things that we're doing in this area, most of you know that the Commission for Persons with Disabilities has an annual expo that we had our first one last year. Councilwoman James is a member of that commission. And the commission, the fair, the expo that will be held this year, which will be on April 22nd, will actually also feature a Medicaid waiver component. Because many seniors and their caregivers are unsure about what all these changes in Medicaid really mean. And so we thought this would be a great way to expand our focus and to really provide some much needed services. On the 28th of May, we're going to be holding a senior job fair, and we have been asked numerous times to see about reinstituting the Higher Older Workers Program, a program that previously operated, lots of communities have it. There's a community in New Jersey that calls it the chore core, and it's for persons 60 plus who they must provide the materials. But a lot of times we get calls from seniors who may not have family living in Lexington who need to have something repaired, but they're afraid to open their house to just anyone. And so they call us and they say, you know, we need to have this chore done. Could you give us a recommendation? And so we're thinking that this would be a way in other communities, it's a way not only to provide opportunities for seniors to work, especially seniors that have skills that are marketable, but also provide seniors with a safe, comfortable way of getting information about some of the services they might need. The issue of mental health and substance abuse services is no different in our community than it is in any other community. It's one that continues. We've had a number of starts and stops with mental health and substance abuse services. There was a group that got together. We're going to do something called Martha's Place. That did not quite pan out. that was going to be over in the Trent Boulevard area in the old, I think, Acceptacon property. That did not quite work out. But what, in the needs assessment, what was very, very clear was that the need for mental health and substance abuse services are a needed service in our community for ages, you know, across the board. And so, again, we wanted to make sure that we did due diligence, and the report actually outlines some specific things, walk-in clinics, after-hour clinics, because after all, these issues are not necessarily eight to five kinds of issues. People have needs and questions all throughout the day. Another key recommendation was the navigator concept. The Navigator concept is one that is fairly new. We have recently tried it with our stimulus funding. What the Navigator concept does is it assigns a family or an individual a person who is not bound by the fact that they work for a specific division or department or agency, but they are free to navigate the community in order to get the services that are needed for that particular family because there are no recipes or cookie-cutter diagrams that can tell you that two families who may both have mental health and substance abuse service issues need the very same prescription, if you will, for how to get the support and help that they need for their family. The navigator concept, we think, is a very strong one. It has elicited a lot of excitement in our department, and we look forward to putting that into place as we go forward. The next one I'm not going to spend a lot of time on, this was Unity Council. They wanted to make sure that our community stayed very understanding that the need for diversity, training, sensitivity programs is and remains something that, again, every community, because our community, like many others, are a mosaic, and we need to remember that part of our legacy and part of our future is the fact that we take that mosaic of people, their cultures, what they bring to the table, and move forward. And it's not always easy or smooth, but it is something that is a must if Lexington is going to remain vibrant and progressive. Affordable Housing Trust and Land Bank, I know that you've dealt with this issue of Affordable Housing Trust. We identified it as something that was very much needed, again, for a community of these resources, a community of this nature needs to ensure that people have affordable housing. And we had a work group that did nothing but focus on housing. And we're kind of appalled to find that we had a large number of people that were spending 40 and 50 percent of their total income on housing. And, of course, when you're spending those kind of dollars on your shelter, that leaves very little for other needs. And we believe that a lot of this is very relational. If your housing needs are not met, your health is affected. If your health is not strong, your ability to get the education that you need is affected. If you can't get the education that you need, then that's going to affect your ability to have the kind of work that brings you joy and also the kind of work that will help Lexington to be as strong as it needs to be and as strong as it can be. So, again, many of these things are very relational. Currently what we're doing is we're still focusing on that centralized rental assistance because we think that has something to do with affordable housing. The stimulus money that I mentioned to you, we were given $850,000 for a three-year period of time. Some of that is for persons who are finding themselves soon to be homeless through no fault of their own. Maybe they live in a rental unit that is being foreclosed. They've had a sudden loss in income, never thinking that they would need this kind of service and help, but they're needing a place to live. If you remember a year or so ago, we had a private entity that purchased a mobile home park that put a lot of people at risk because they thought they owned their home, and they did. but it was a home that could not be moved because of the condition that the home had deteriorated to. So, again, we believe that this is very important. Our department is providing for the Newtown Pike project. The federal government, for the first time, tried an experiment right here in Lexington. I'm not sure that many of you know about that, but they actually provided the Newtown Pike project with funding for a social service component. And we actually were given the funding to hire actually two case managers, social workers, to provide support to those families that are being affected by the Newtown Pike extension, to help them make decisions, really to navigate for them, to help them make decisions, to help them understand what all of this relocation means for them, both present and in the future. So our workers are doing that. And most of you already know that we are very involved in the HOPE VI project and the revitalization of the East End. We came to you not too long ago with a request to permit us to extend our HOPE VI project to year number six. So it's now been extended to the end of the fiscal year 2011, and that's going to allow REACH to provide counseling for families, because, again, we want to move families into homes and into shelters and homes in which they can be comfortable and in which they can continue their lives and provide the support that they need for their families. Dr. Helm, on this last slide, if you could maybe just spend a couple minutes on it, and that way we'll have time for questions. Sure. Trends and emerging issues, we've identified a number. If it will change for me. We have a growing senior population. We are aware that by 2030, the senior population in Lexington is expected to double. It's currently at 10%. The issue of kin care, the issue of grandparents raising grandchildren and seniors 60-plus caring for their parents who are 80-plus, not having the answers, needing really that navigator concept again, needing some answers, needing some help, needing to connect with others who have participated in this. Just a statistic, in 2007, there were 1,900 grandparents in Lexington caring and raising their grandchildren. So this is an issue that is not just one to be read about in other communities, but is actually affecting us here. The reentry, we know that we have a number of adolescents who are aging out of foster care. They have no family, perhaps, to reconnect to, and they're aging out after having been in foster care for a number of years. We need to make sure that they have the support that they need to do that successfully. The same thing for those who are exiting prison and other shelters. We need to make sure that the various social service entities, agencies, and faith-based organizations are aware of the need to be supportive of them. Financial literacy and payee services, this is something that you will see us focus on more in the future. Again, we don't want to just simply give people or provide them with funding for this year only or this month, only to have them reappear next month. We believe that we have a responsibility to give them the tools that they need in order to be successful as they go forward. You heard a couple of weeks ago Harmony Little give a presentation on C-Keep. What you need to know is that that program is currently being supported by the Poverty Law Center. It is one that brings a great deal of money into the Lexington community, and we need to make sure that that program does not go away. They are at the $3 million mark as we stand here today. That is more than double what the income tax returns that they were able to process last year, and those are all Lexington residents, which means that that money is right here. The Earned Income Tax Credit Program is now being hailed as probably the greatest anti-poverty program since the War on Poverty that Lyndon Johnson started back in the 60s, and so it's very important for people to realize that they are eligible for some of these tax incentives. Central intake, again, just means that sometimes we ask our most vulnerable citizens to make three and four phone calls, four and five trips to various locations to get the information that they need. We are suggesting within our department especially that we do a central intake so that someone who needs rental assistance isn't having to go out on industry road, but then they also need support for an out-of-control teenager and they're having to go over on Versailles Road. If we do a central intake, then we can help them to get where they need without spending a lot, a lot of time. Positive youth programs and services, we have started something called RAP, Weekly Reporting at Achievement, which helps young people who are struggling in school and perhaps in their relationships with family and friends learn to control their anger and to really focus on that, which is truly important. Another program that we've started is called Another Chance. This is for 16- to 18-year-olds who have dropped out of school, perhaps not understanding that even a GED in today's economic times is not – they've got to at least have that high school exit, but they need more than that. And so that program is for that. We're doing a program called PAIR, Prevention Awareness Resources, and education specifically for Latino and Hispanic youth, again to be able to make sure that we're meeting the needs of the Mosaic within our community. And, of course, you know about our summer youth employment program. We're also doing a program called Suspensions and Alternatives so that a youth that is court-ordered and happens to get suspended from school, we don't want that youth just out in the community. And so we bring them into our building and put them on a computer and continue to work with them on their scale. So they're not in school, but they're in a safe program where we can monitor their behavior and make sure that, you know, idle hands are not getting into things that they shouldn't get into. And then last is just enhanced awareness and advocacy. We recognize that we must all be a part of the solution, and we must all speak and support regardless of whether it is the Salvation Army or Movable Feast or any of our other partner agencies, we must all be aware of their services and their needs and be a part of providing, like I said, that extra social service net for those that reside in our community. All right. Thank you, Dr. Helm. Committee members that have any questions for Dr. Helm, please just hit your request to speak button. I'll call on you. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. Commissioner Helm. Thank you. I know that there are and continue to be many, many needs in Lexington. And I think, but I also think we're making some progress. I was interested, I see 211 as being like the clearinghouse for many, many things. I just wanted to see what your thoughts were on that. You talked about a central intake, which I think, you know, setting those up in certain areas throughout the community. And we've talked a lot about 211. In fact, I've actually pulled together a group. Jack Birch and I actually pulled together a group last July because we were very concerned about the rise in fuel costs, that that was perhaps going to force people to make decisions that, while maybe expedient for the day, were not the best decision in the long run. And so we pulled together a group of individuals to kind of look at what are the emerging trends in Lexington that the economy and the society is causing in Lexington. And so we considered a 2-1-1, and the United Way is part of that group. What they recommended or cautioned us is that the people that call 2-1-1, they call to get the connection. Often 2-1-1 doesn't know if the individual actually followed through in getting the service. Did they get a busy signal? Did they lose the number? Did they actually follow through? And so we're trying to make sure that we are really looking at that to see, is there a way that we can capture those numbers as well? But you're right, and I think everyone is very aware of 2-1-1 and 3-1-1 because they are all very interconnected. And if 2-1-1 can operate like our 3-1-1 system, is that what you're referring to, I guess, where it's better tracking, you know? And they do good tracking. It's just a matter of once you give them the number to call or the agency to call, you don't have any way to know if they actually follow through with that. Whereas I think with 311, we have a system so that when you give that call to, let's just say the Department of Social Services, 311 follows up to see, did you actually follow up with that? And that may be the piece that we still want to add or the piece that we want to consider so that we've got some really good data. Exactly. But United Way is part of that Emerging Trends group, and so they are very much aware of any gaps in services or needs. I'm also, I know I've talked about this before, and I believe that it's being done, but in the case where an individual needs rent assistance, they've been laid off from their job, maybe hadn't been there long enough to receive unemployment benefits or unemployment benefits running out, don't know how they're going to pay their bills. Do you, are there additional assistance to where you're looking at the whole problem? Like maybe that person needs assistance with employment or, you know, just paying the bill doesn't really solve the problem. Yes, we are, and I think it's very helpful that our adult and tenant services that provides a lot of our financial assistance and other support is in the same building with the one-stop, you know, the unemployment office and all of those other support services that are provided by the state. They're right there. So if someone comes in and they need help getting their resume done or they need help in looking for a job or getting additional assistance, a lot of the other agencies are right there in that same building. And so in a way, that's almost kind of a one-stop shop that we put together without really even thinking about putting together a one-stop shop on the front end. That's true. And I also know that there are services there for individuals with disabilities that may need assistance. That's correct. Thank you, Commissioner. You're welcome. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Madam Chair. Commissioner, could you tell me where we are with the aging services and independent living administrator? She is on board. On board now? In fact, she is upstairs now helping to put together this spring senior intern program. So she is on board, yes. Good, good, because that's such an important. It is. And she is incredible. She brings a wealth of skills and a wealth of background. She had previously worked for Parks and Recreation and had already had extensive experience working with seniors and with persons with disabilities, and so it is just a perfect fit. Good. And as we look toward fiscal 11, and I know you're thinking about, you know, the budget for your department, and then thinking about the list of recommendations and needs, are you working in terms of certain priorities? Are you going to put more eggs in one basket than another, perhaps, or at least try to do that and say, well, we need really to emphasize this particular program or that? Where are you, where do you want to head? Well, it seems these days that that's all we're doing is talking about and focusing on budget and how we can really be good stewards of the dollars that the taxpayers have allowed us the opportunity to use to provide services. So just this morning, our division directors were sitting down and talking about, okay, the budget is what it is. What are our priorities? What must we do? What must we sacrifice in order to make sure that those needs that we have identified that are a priority get put into place? And so in some cases you'll see where we are going to reorganize for efficiency's sake. For example, in my office, my phones are now operated over at the – answered over on Versailles Road in the Division of Youth Services because what we decided was that we could really no longer afford to have, everybody couldn't afford to have someone just answering the phone. So we're looking for savings where we can. We have identified the payee and the financial literacy piece as a priority because, again, if we don't put something like that into place, then those that we help today are going, if they're not back tomorrow, they're going to be back in the next fiscal year. And many of these individuals are not necessarily wanting just a hand out. They're wanting a hand up. They're wanting some help. They're wanting some support. And so that program, you will see us do everything in our power to put into the budget by reassigning persons. Right now we're looking to see do we have someone within the department that has a real interest in that area. We know that there are a lot of people in the community that could provide the services. Leadership Lexington last year had a group of individuals who put together a financial literacy program as their project for seniors, and it was wildly successful. We've had a number of individuals in the community that have volunteered to provide some of these services as well. So that's just one example. The Navigator concept, we are very committed to that, and we are reassigning some of our social workers to make sure that persons who are needing help, especially through the stimulus funding, which we have for the next two years, will have an opportunity to really get all of the support that they need and not just the support to pay a utility bill. It's more than that. It really is looking at those that we call our fellow citizens, providing them with a very holistic approach to that safety net. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Council Member Feigl. Thank you, Chair. Thank you so much for the presentation. I know that you all are doing a lot of really good things for the people in the community. I just have a couple of quick questions. How long has 211 been operational? Oh, my gosh. Years. Many years. Councilman Wallace's years, a number. Okay. Okay. And have you tracked over the years the kinds of requests that we get and tried to categorize those? And could we get some information about? Yes, I can certainly do that. In fact, that was shared at our last Emerging Trends meeting, and it was probably the last piece of paper that I left on my desk and thought, nah, I'm not going to need that. What I can tell you is that in the last quarter of 2009, the request for food, rental assistance, tax assistance, were the top three issues that people were calling 211 about. So they are tracking the calls. As I mentioned earlier, what we may not be doing is coming full circle and really determining did the call result in an action that was acceptable and helpful at the other end. And that's through no fault of anyone's. I mean, it's a great service to our community, and I think we just need to keep building on it. But when the call comes in, you do get the telephone number from the person who's called? The United Way takes all of those calls, and they do get the number. Yes, they do. Okay. And I guess one of my questions is, is there any limitation on who can call? Is this just for Fayette County, or is this regional? It really depends on, well, United Way is regional because they provide services to a number of other counties. It's very dependent on the agencies with the services giving the information to the United Way. It's one of those things that if you call, you may have a great service, But if you haven't provided that information to the United Way, they can't then give it to their 211 operator who can then give it to the person or persons that call. So United Way does a wonderful job keeping that very much up to date. The person who is in charge of that has a number of opportunities to go out and speak to various groups. She goes to various communities. And so, yes, I think they're doing an excellent job. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. I'll add a little bit to that. Last year, I can't remember if it was before. I don't remember the date, but 211 came and presented at a workshop, and they provided calls. They had reports out of every district, and they showed, I think, actually, they didn't do it by district. They did it by zip code, I think, and they showed the number of calls that came in and based on what. So if you contact United Way directly, I'm sure they'll meet with you and talk to you about what kind of calls come in and that sort of thing. It's a phenomenal resource. And one thing we were talking about was the compatibility of that with our 311 system and what are they dealing with and what could we deal with and how could we work together. So they're a great resource. But I'll be more than happy to provide you with that listing because it was very interesting to look at the last quarter of 2009 and they were waiting to see what the first quarter of 2010, because we think that perhaps it's going to look very, very different. Council Member Martin is next. Yeah, I just want to add about the 211. There is a riveting interview of United Way President Bill Farmer that just hit GTV3. And so I would direct folks onto the website and where you can catch it on the GTV website. and there are a thousand agencies that are accessed through 211 and the big thing right now is tax preparation. Folks can call 211 to get help with tax preparation but you can also access 211 through an online through www.uwbg.org. You're just a perfect commercial for United States. That's right. That's right. Well, we prepped for the GTV3 interview and I've got an article coming out in Business Lexington about it as well But it's just a wonderful, wonderful program, and it's just a great way to access just a lot of agency. So you can check it out on GTV3 because a lot of this information is on there from Bill Farmer. 211 actually schedules all of the Sea Keep appointments. So you call them, and they will schedule your appointment to have your taxes done at one of the sites, one of the 18 sites that are in the community and outside because they are now providing services outside of the community as well. Great information. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Commissioner, for coming in and presenting the report to us. I've got just a couple of questions. On the standardized rental assistance program, another thing that may be able to be added to that whole kind of one-stop shop, or at least the umbrella over the top of it so people aren't kind of shopping and get some resources over here, and then go to the next one and get resources and continue to do that. We know that's an issue. Is the utility payment assistance, whether it's heating or air conditioning in the wintertime or in the summertime, have you had any conversations about maybe merging those two issues and putting them under that same umbrella? Yes. Now that you bring that up, we have actually scheduled, well, I shouldn't say scheduled because I don't know that it's actually been scheduled, but we've been talking about the fact that for that very reason that perhaps we need to focus more on the rental assistance and let others take the utility assistance. Because remember, our department is almost an extra layer of support for those needing social services in our community. There are lots of other entities and agencies, and very often we'll say, have you tried there? Or do you realize that you're not eligible for this, but we can refer you here? And utility assistance is probably the one area that we're feeling that maybe we need to back off a little, let Community Action and some of the other agencies really pick that up more and then use our funding to do the rental assistance. That way you're taking one player out, And so that possibility of people either, I don't want to say abusing the system, but perhaps becoming over-reliant on any one entity is reduced. And it would then free our staff up a little bit to maybe take on that role of providing the coordination for the centralized rental assistance, because we think that's key, and we think it's very important. Okay. Sort of kind of catapult off of that. If you go down to the bottom, you talk about the affordable housing, just the issue of housing. Another thing that creates difficulty is high utility bills. So I'm wondering if there's a way, and I've talked to some different people. You know, LBAR, the Builders Association, I mean the Builders Association, has a program where they go in and provide upgrades to homes for seniors. They've got that grant program, and it's a dynamic program. It's phenomenal, and it's working, and they've done it for years, so they know how to do it effectively and efficiently. I'm wondering, and I've talked to Todd Johnson and some others, is there not a way that we can look at taking some of those dollars that we use to pay for utility assistance and instead retrofit those homes with blowing insulation or something so that instead of having $500 a month utility bills that we're continuing to pay every year, we get the utility down to $50 a month. And we spend that money instead of just earning money. We actually do something to the home so it's more efficient in terms of utility cost. So before we let go of our piece of the utility assistance, I wonder if we can stay in that conversation long enough to kind of spearhead a sort of a program that mirrors what the homeowners or the homeowners are doing with the senior housing. Well, one of the things that we do know is that community action is also very strong in that area. They have been given not only through the stimulus but through other sources of their funding. They have quite a pool of funding, never enough to meet all of the needs, but they've got a weatherization program. And so, again, I don't think that we've looked at it from that standpoint because our thinking was if the service is already being done, then perhaps we need to not complicate matters. But it certainly is always something that we can, you know, keep as part of the ongoing conversation. And we've got a number of people that are on the Community Action Board who I'm sure would be very helpful in working with us on that. I certainly agree that we don't want to keep our hands on something that just complicates it and muddles the situation. But if we could turn that conversation from just continuing to pay for utility bills to weatherizing the homes to decrease the utility bill, that's the direction I think we have to go. So to the extent that we can play a role in that conversation, I'd certainly like to be a part of that. Okay. We'll certainly keep that in mind. My last question is, and I appreciate that you've done this, because this is something that the partner agencies or outside agencies subcommittees ask for from the previous administration, and we've asked for it every year, is to get something so we have kind of a jumping-off point. So when we're looking at the partner agencies that we're supporting each year, we have some type of focus in mind and some kind of umbrella that we want to provide that safety net, not just provide funding here and there in a scattered shotgun approach, but a focused approach. You talked about the kiosk earlier, and this has been a dream since I was in grad school. I haven't been able to pull it off yet. is to, for example, in the new Gaines Lake Community Center, is to have a computer there that's a touchscreen computer that would rely on asset mapping data so that until we can move, if we don't get there to the one-stop shop you were talking about, we've got scatter site services, but I can go in there and hit the buttons on there to find, you know, child care or to find transportation or rental assistance or all those things in that one stop. But not only in that system will it tell me where I can go to get those services, but it will tell me the hours of operation, the contact names, the information I need to take with me. You've got to have a picture ID and a second ID so that when I get there, I've got everything I need to go. So how can we work on that? And I'm not sure if by kiosk you meant something similar to that, but I'd sure like to at least get one or two of those up as a model to see how they work. We would be very excited to experiment with that. One of the things that we're talking to some of our partner agencies right now about is a, not a sophisticated version of that, but just simply a flow chart so that people know where to start. So if I knock on door A and the answer is no, where do I go? Who do I see next? Or if my issue is this and not that, how do I get the services that I need? It's very similar to that kiosk. I don't think we hadn't advanced as far as the kiosk idea, but it certainly sounds exciting, and we'd love to try to do something with that idea. Okay. Can I ask, where are we at on asset mapping? Do we have a database that – I know GIS has a database that will have many of those social service or supportive services agencies location. When I was in St. Louis, we did it as a project, and we had a lot of youth groups go out and asset map their own community. And we started out with the spreadsheet of data we wanted them to collect. Then they collected it, and we put it all into one big database. So we had that. You know, I'd love to maybe we can write a grant to get some funding to help do that or something, but I'd love to take that on as a project this year and see if we can get the asset mapping done. Can you speak to maybe we already have that done? I think LexLink did something similar to that a number of years ago. What I can do is, you know, bring this idea and conversation up with Wanda Bertram, the executive director of LexLink, to see if that is something that if they did do this a number of years ago, is it something that needs to be updated? If they did not do it, and I'm mistaken, then perhaps it is a project that their board would be willing to take on. Okay. If you will commit to looking at it from that perspective, I'll commit to finding the funding to get it done. Oh, boy. All right. Sounds good. Okay. Thank you. I'm Councillor Myers. Thanks for your comment about the weatherization. And I'm, I am on that community action council board and I look forward to talking with you about it. I will tell you that one of the biggest gaps is weatherization for people that are renting because a lot of the programs exist to help homeowners owner occupied, but the rent, if you're renting from a landlord, that's where the biggest gap is right now. So if you want to work on a pilot project for that. That would be amazing because it's kind of a, how do you figure out how to, you're giving money back to a landlord. It's basically a business. So if you can, if you can work through those quirks, I'm sure there will be plenty of people that would rather have their place want to rise and not even have to worry about going to community action for help. Right. And it just seems to me that the utility companies and most of them are good corporate citizens. I'm not, I'm not going that direction, but it seems to me that they would have an interested in this as well. They do. They do, actually. And KU is a very strong partner with the Community Actions Weatherization Program and they do a lot of, you know, they give the window you know, the things that go in the window, talking and the stripping and things like that. So they do a lot of that donation and a lot of their employees volunteer for the weatherization program. So I know that they're at least from, and I'm sure the others would also be interested, but I know that KU is on board with that. I participated with that weatherization program through them. Well, it sounds like since our committee structure is what it is, we probably need to do a work group narrow it down to five people to drill down into this and see if we can get something done. Stop being facetious. I want to ask before we close out, I don't want to see any other speakers, but what can the council or this committee do to help implement the social services needs assessment while you have our ear and now we've heard the presentation, what can we do to help you? Well, a lot of these ideas are wonderful, but they are new, and in some cases it means that we would have to change what we're currently doing. Change is very difficult. It's very challenging. And so as we come before you, obviously we expect for you to inquire as to why and what and what statistics do we have and how we intend to carry it out, what are our outcomes, how we intend to evaluate it to ensure that we're doing the very best that we can, but just to understand that sometimes when you propose changes, there are going to be those who are going to say, no way, we've been doing it like this forever and we're going to continue, even if the original intention is usually very good, but the needs of the community now are vastly different than they were, you know, 5, 10, 15 years ago. And so some of this is taking resources that we currently are using in one area, and we may have to divert them because, as we all know, there are no new funds. And so we just ask for your support. We would ask for your input, any direction or guidance. Please don't hesitate to let us know. On Friday, we have actually reconvened the Department of Social Service Advisory Council that has been out of existence for 15-plus years. And these are community members, Bill Farmer of the United Way, the new dean of the College of Social Work, Dr. Ike Adams, a number of people from the community have agreed to serve. We are going to meet quarterly, and they are going to help ensure that our department stays on mission and that we are not afraid to change if the indices indicate that we need to stop doing A because B and C have now taken a higher priority. So we're looking forward to working with this wonderful group of nine individuals. Councilwoman Henson is the council ex-officio member on the board, and we look forward to reporting and keeping you informed as to the work of this group. Okay, great. Councilor Myers, name is back up. Thank you, Madam Chair. Commissioner, Commissioner. Your comments were apropos to the conversation about your needed support from this body to move things forward. What I would ask from you on your end is that if you can do it in a way that you kind of bring, like, presentations before us with a plan rather than just blue-sheeted items that this is where we're going, because it will be easier to get the support early in the process so that we all can help educate the community on what it is you're trying to do and why it's important we go that direction, rather than we just get a blue sheet that says this is what we're going to do, and then we've all got to kind of take two steps back, learn ourselves, and then get the information out there. So that would be a tremendous help. Okay. If I can, Councilwoman Feigl, I actually brought that sheet with me. So real quickly, just let me tell you, 211 data in 2009, they received 20,311 calls from all over, with the majority of those being from Fayette County. The top five calls for the fourth quarter were food pantries, housing payment assistance, electric bill assistance, Christmas gifts, and furniture. The top five calls for all of 2009, tax assistance, housing payment assistance, food pantries, electric bill assistance, and furniture. And so they are keeping a good track. I thought I had left this, but I actually brought it with me. Thank you for sharing that. You're welcome. Thank you, Dr. Helm. Appreciate it. You're welcome. Keep in touch with us. I think I have another, the next item. Yes, you do. Council Member Meyers, you want to talk a little bit about the next item? Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Commissioner, for coming in. On this position, could you tell us, one, is this position going to take the place of the program administrator that was at Day Treatment Center? That when the retirement happened, I think that position was abolished. Is this position going to take over that spot? This is a position, I don't know if you remember, but you actually talked with me a little bit about it and said, is this the position that you need? We're not quite sure. Day treatment went from basically having three administrative positions to basically having one. Right. With the one being someone who that administration is not what they enjoy doing. They are a service provider. Right. So day treatment really needs, in our opinion, at least someone there who is in a supervisory administrative management role. But we weren't sure that we needed someone there all of the time. So what we identified was that perhaps this administrative officer position and the PAQ that we completed actually provided for 40 percent of this person's time to do that, because we think if we're going to do it, we need to do it well, and so it's a priority. And then 40 percent of the person's time actually helping us with partner agencies, because, again, it's another need. We know that it's important, and we just felt like we couldn't just keep year after year just saying, well, it's important, and we're going to get to it just as soon as we can. So we had identified this position to do both. What we found is that trying to find an individual with the skill sets and the interest to do both is proving to be very challenging. Either they enjoy and have the skill sets to do one and not necessarily the other. So this particular item, I mean, the position was actually approved and funded in the fiscal year 10 budget. This action that appeared before you in January was simply to get the position established. We did not realize that the, or I did not realize that the position hadn't been established, because by the time it was approved, we didn't really have time to go through the recruitment and the whole phase. I felt like I needed to get someone in that facility to welcome the youth and to make sure that we've done due diligence over the summer to welcome the youth back to the education treatment program. And so we still do not have a person, you know, in that situation, other than we are currently using a temporary educator to serve in that particular role. You mentioned 40% for day treatment and then 40% for partner agencies. What do they do the other 20%? And, of course, when you do these PAQs, you are just kind of taking guesses. Fifteen percent, we were going to ask the person to help us with, monitor our accreditation process for our department, which would give the person an opportunity to understand the department as a whole, and then five percent other duties as assigned. And so, you know, the person could end up doing 50 percent right now. Ms. Woods, who is at day treatment, just works part-time, and she puts together a schedule at the end of each week, telling the staff when she will be in the building. And it's worked out fairly well. So what's the actual job title that this position is going to have? The actual job title is, I mean, the specific job title is administrative officer. And our thinking was administrative officer with responsibilities for oversight, administrative oversight of day treatment, partner agencies, and accreditation. Okay. But program administrator is the title. The incumbent that's in the position now? Is just a part-time person and is not in this position. They are just simply there serving in the role as kind of like a program administrator. Okay. Is that their title? I believe it is. Okay. Do you know the classification, the job classification? No, I just know that it's a part-time position. A person is paid hourly. No, I don't. Okay. And then when was that created? Do you know? It's a part-time position, so I don't know that it had to be created. That was why we went in that particular direction, because with HR's guidance, they realized that school was going to be starting, and there was no way that we were going to be able to write a PAQ, write the job spec, bring the position back to the council and have someone there for the start of the school year because there just wasn't enough time. So we hired someone in a part-time position to go in and serve in that role. And even doing it that way, she was not able to start until after Labor Day, which meant that we weren't able to do the things that you normally think of having done in a school over the summer in getting ready for the students or the clients to return. I've also got a thought here for a second. When you look at that position that's going to be full-time, Typically, I think normally, the partner agencies have been, they report to the commissioner's office. So how will that work when you've got this person that in some regards is going to report to you as the commissioner, but in other regards they're going to report to a director? How are you going to work that out? Well, I think we were just simply being creative in understanding that we did not have the funding to have two separate positions, and yet we had two very distinct and separate important tasks that needed to be done. I think someone who is very focused on doing their job, it doesn't necessarily matter who they report to as long as they do the work that is required, and then the Director and I would just work together to make sure that we support that individual. So you don't foresee any problems with moving forward in terms of, in some respects, more concerned about the partner agencies getting the attention that they need from your level? Well, and one of the things that I tried to do was to see if I could then just take this whole position and have it, not have it, but put it in half, and do a portion of it just at day treatment. And if I could find someone like Ms. Woods who would be willing to just do the job part-time and then to have someone part-time to just do the partner agency, but I still need apparently the position created or funded or whatever to make sure that I've got it in the budget so that I can go forward and, you know, we can get more creative as we move forward. Okay. But that was the real issue. When we got ready to say, okay, let's start looking to see how we can make this occur, HR reminded us that even though the – and you brought this up in the links last year, I remember you said when the council puts a position in, what's the follow-through to make sure that it actually gets filled? And so when I realized over the winter break that the position had never been created, it was like, oh, my goodness, because I'm accustomed to once it is approved in the budget, it's there. And so I just assumed it was there waiting for me and waiting for us to move forward with the advertisement and the filling of the position. So that was why it appeared in January and not earlier. Okay. One of the other questions I had, but I got it answered earlier, was the language in here appears to read that they would get paid retroactively back to the 22nd of 2009. But I understand that's not. I've done due diligence in trying to figure out who wrote that like that. And my understanding, and I won't give away my source, but my understanding is that it was written that way because June 22nd included the dates of the first pay period in the new fiscal year. And, again, it doesn't need to be written that way for me because we certainly don't even have any – we haven't even advertised for the position. I don't imagine, because I actually gave up the funding for the remainder of the year for this position, so it will not be filled during the fiscal year 10. But what we are hoping to do is to create the position and have it available for us for fiscal year 11. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Are there other questions from committee members on this? Commissioner Rumpke, did you have anything on this? Were you here for this item? Okay. Okay. Dr. Hamm, I have a question on the administrative review form that is in our packet affiliated with this position. I guess it was in our original packet as well. It's the administrative review form, page 18 of your packet. Yes. Would you have seen this and signed off on this? Yes, I did. Yeah, that is my signature. But that's only relevant to this item, so that's not the original. I'm trying to figure out originally the memo that was written that says effective June 22nd. Was there at some point you looked at that before it came to council and you said? No, I actually wrote the memo to Michael Allen on January 5th and just simply asked to have the position established. What happens from there is HR actually does the blue sheet for and writes the memo based on the request. Then it's written, an item is written for the work session. And then my understanding is that the law department then actually puts the wording into either a resolution, into resolution or ordinance wording. And I think what they did was since June 22nd was mentioned, they felt it was important to indicate that in the language that actually appeared before you on January 14th. Okay. But, no, that was never in my memo, which is right here, and June 22nd is not mentioned. I just simply said, please get this position established so that Councilman Myers can't come back and say, now, we gave you funding for that. Where is it? Here it is. So funding is in the, there is funding for this position, and that's not on like a standby or a hold or anything that's. Well, I actually gave it up for, as part of the reduction, for the remainder of this year. But it is available, and I have requested it for full funding for fiscal year 11. Okay. The part-time person is still working right now. Yes, the part-time person is still working, thank goodness, because she was in a temporary part-time position, and temporary part-time positions are only to be for six months. So her term actually expired yesterday. And so I had to work with HR to say, okay, now what can we do? Because it's the middle of the year. She can't just walk out of that building and leave, you know, the program without some kind of management oversight. So they were able to come up with a way to extend her term because day treatment actually goes through July because it is a program that is there is a requirement that it goes an additional 33 days beyond the regular school year. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Feigl. Thank you, Chair. I have a question for Commissioner Rumpke. I'm just curious. I guess one of my first questions was going to be, was this position used in balancing our budget for this fiscal year? You know, we talked a little bit about those positions that had not been filled and how we used those positions to address some of the shortfall. And I think she mentioned that. So my next question is, as we go forward and start looking at the next year's budget, I know that there are some considerations being made in some departments for reducing personnel. And I just wonder how this is going to fit into all of those considerations. Well, that's what Commissioner Helm and I have been working on together, is to ensure that we understand what the key priorities are based on her presentation today. One of the reasons I wanted to sit in so that I had a full understanding, so that as we sit and try to make these tough recommendations to bring to council, that we understand where our priorities are so that if we do have to make some shifts or as Marlene indicated, be creative in how we bring things forward, you know, splitting positions, whatever that looks like that we're keeping our priorities in mind based on what's been presented today or what may come forward as these needs assessments come forward through the various sources like United Way and some of the other studies, the new advisory committee that's beginning to meet on this Friday. So that's how, not just in her area, but across urban county government, each commissioner is now stepping back and trying to put those priorities together based on what we've talked about here and from a risk standpoint. So I hope that's helpful. Well, it is helpful. I just wanted to, I don't have a problem going forward in creating this position, but just wanted to be sure that this position, along with all of the other positions that could be considered in jeopardy, are considered, you know, equally. And that we're not choosing to move forward on something not knowing where the offsets might be. Right. I understand. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Any more questions from committee members? All right. Seeing none, thank you, Dr. Helm, for being here. The next item on our agenda is, I'm sorry, oh, I'm sorry, Council Member Myers did ask earlier to speak. I do have one question before I do this, though. I think maybe you said that part-time positions do not have to be approved. Well, apparently we can employ someone in a part-time position if we have part-time funding available. And we had some part-time funding available. And so we employed her to work part-time to do this particular job. Okay. Are you saying part-time temporary? Part-time temporary. Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, since there's no more questions about this position, I'd like to move that we go ahead and place this back on the docket for approval. So moved. There's a motion by Council Member Myers and a second by Council Member Henson to place the administrative youth services position officer, I'm sorry, administrative officer position in the Division of Youth Services back onto the council docket. Is there any discussion? No discussion? All right. All in favor, please say aye. Are there any opposed? All right. That's unanimous, Vicki. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Myers, for that. Thank you. E911, call center management. I see Director Lucas here. Councilmember Lawless, you want to give us just a very brief idea of what it is we're expecting to hear today? Well, I asked after the meeting right before Christmas when the E911 employees came and they hadn't been able to take vacation time, et cetera, for us to look at this more closely. I have met with Mr. Lucas once and made some suggestions, but I haven't heard back from him on those. And so I have a lot of questions about the presentation, but I'd like for him to get started so we can move on through this, hopefully. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lucas, for being here. All right. As she said, this is a follow-up to our meeting in January. And actually, in your packet, there's four documents. The organizational chart, which you guys had requested after the last meeting. The second is a bar chart, which actually was presented at the last meeting, but you did not have in your packet. The third item, there's two spreadsheets, and I'll be going over those shortly. And then on page 25 is the third one. So I plan on covering pages 23, 24, and 25, and then opening it up to questions if I don't answer any direct questions during that presentation. Okay, this first one actually shows the 11 employees we had discussed about in our last meeting. This is the amount of time they used last year, the amount of hours that rolled over. And as you can see, since the beginning of the year, we have had vacation hours used through February, which was when I submitted this for the packet. Hours of vacations approved through the end of March. And as you can see in the last, that we will successfully burn all the rollover hours before the deadline of April 1st. So we will make sure that everyone that was extended those three months will be able to use all their time by that time. The next sheet, which will be page 24, or actually 23, the packet has them in backwards order. Just getting to April 1st is just part of the battle. That's just burning hours that rolled over. We still have hours that accumulate for all of 2010, and we want to be proactive and try to get on top of that as well. What you see here on the far left is the hours that were carried over. In the middle here is hours they will accumulate in holiday time, and in the far right are hours they will accumulate in vacation. And then we've already scheduled, we are scheduling vacation or leave time up through July. We did not schedule anything beyond July. But just with what they've used through July or have planned and approved to leave, We've gotten these numbers down from 11, 8, and 9 weeks to a high of almost 6, and some of them we've already gotten below the requirement. So this is ensuring that we won't get to the same problem we were last year. Now, I reviewed all of our employees, but the top 11 are the ones that from year to year that we've had and not been able to burn those. So I concentrated on the top dozen, actually, and you see the top 11 here. But we're monitoring all the staff members to make sure they ask for leave and are able to use it. We didn't go beyond July because we don't know what our staffing levels will be beyond that point. But as we get closer to July, we'll open up vacation requests all the way up to the games and then for after the games because we will not be approving leave during the games. The last slide I have here is page 25. That actually is to address some of the questions on how do we hire people, what's the process, how long it takes. So I created this chart here, and ironically the chart is easier to read from right to left, and I'll read it that way. On the far right, we have the number. This is our hiring process. We start out working with HR. They do a job analysis, put out the ads, and that's where we are with the supervisory position. Right now they are doing a job analysis that is underway, and we expect to have that completed in the next two weeks. After that, we put it and we advertise it, and you can see the telecom position is currently open. That means it is open for advertising. It's actually on our webpage. It was advertised last Sunday, and it will remain open until March 19th, at which time, once it's closed, HR will review all the applicants, make sure they meet the minimum requirements, and then we start testing. Just a note here, the middle one, the Telcom Senior, is actually closed because we've already gone through that process, and they've reviewed all the applicants. We had over 60, but only five became candidates because only five met our minimum standards, and that's what this five right here represents. So currently I have five candidates in this category. The other two, we won't get candidates until after they submit their applications. The next stage is actually testing. We have in-house testing. It's called critical, where we test their multifunctioning capabilities, typing, listening, doing multiple things at one time. There's a minimum of scores required for that. As you can see, we have one person in the testing stage right now from a previous applicant pool in each of these categories. Once they complete the testing stage, which as you can see outlined on here, they test additional tests after they get through criticals. They get interviewed, and according to state requirements, they have to have a polygraph, a background check, and a psychological study. So once all that testing is completed, they are actually able to be hired. We offer them whatever the HR provides for entering rate. And then you can see right there in the middle, which is our vacancy. So we consider these still vacant as they go through the hiring process. Once we hire them and they have their start date, they become a probationary employee. So right now I have three employees. They're on our roster as being filled positions, but they cannot answer phones. They're still being trained. They have to go to Richmond to the Telecommunicator Academy for four and a half weeks and successfully graduate that during that period. After they come back, they're still training in-house. It takes about five to six months from the date they get hired through probation until we become the solo stage, which is where our ultimate goal, because once they're solo, they can take calls or dispatch police and fire on their own. So the process from the vacancy to the solo is five to six months. The process from becoming a candidate to getting to the probation period is another three to four months. So that is the lag time to get someone from advertising forward. Sometimes those probation periods have shrunk if we get an experienced person from Richmond or Louisville or another center that's comparable to our size, but it won't slow down the candidate to vacancy time, only the probationary time. Another question that was asked last time, I do not have a slide on, but it was about our retention rate. And I think I was quoted as saying our retention rate was at 32%, which means we had a turnover rate around 31%, 32%. Afterwards, someone said, David Houth, could those numbers be right? and I showed them my calculations, and they said, well, you need to work on your math skills. So as I was preparing for today, one of the questions was to break down our turnover rate by year. So I went back and did it by fiscal year because it was easier to track that way, and that's what this slide here represents. Since July of 2006, which is fiscal year 2007, You can see I broke down how many people we had leave or depart. They either retired, transferred, which means they're still in urban county government, resigned, dismissed, or there was another category as well, and then our total departures. Except for this fiscal year, which I only did numbers for the first six months, they're all full years. You can see that our turnover rate is averaging about 12.5% over the four years, flux rating. So basically we're losing about eight people per year for a turnover rate around 12%. And that's all I had to present, but I'd like to leave it open for questions. Thank you, Director Lucas. We do have a couple people that wish to speak. Council Member Lawless is first. Thank you, Madam Chair. This bar chart, I'm not quite clear what it is. Okay. This is telecommunicator, and it's got 42. Yes. This is the one I presented. Let me put my black and white copy up. Excuse the notes and scribbling on it. It was my working copy for today's presentation. What this chart represents, the telecommunicators is just the group of supervisors, dispatchers, and call takers. As a group, we call them telecommunicators. The dark bars represent the number of full-time, merit, or solo positions that we have, people that are solo. The white one represents people who are still in the solo stage. So they count in the total number of people we have. However, they cannot operate on their own. Now, halfway through here, we added another category, and it doesn't show well on here. I hope it shows better on your personal copies. That is when we started employing part-time people. We use temp services where we get people who either left here, they retire, or they're going to school, and we still use them part-time. or we have some people who would like to work here, and we hire them through the temp agency until we have a job opening or they can get on the list to be reviewed. So they still count as a fraction. Some of them work 20 hours a week. Some work 40-hour weeks. So they are not full-time employees. But right now I think I have two-and-a-half full-time equivalents by using part-time people. The numbers on the bottom are the number of months since I became the director of these personnel, which would have been in July of 2006. So 1 through 42 represents the 42 months since that period. So are you saying the gray is temp employees? That is correct. And there are almost 60 temp employees? No, that number on the left represents the total. So you've got three different colors. The bottom color you would see would be up to this. Which month are you looking at specifically? Well, the last month it's not quite 60. Yes, that is the number of full-time employees is 60. The next color or that next gray shade represents two and a half people, and then the white group. So if you add them all together, you get to that total of near 60. It looks like 63 people. Okay. So what I see here is that right now in month 42, we're at about the lowest point. And it looked to me like in FY10, I assume that's the first six months of this year, you'd already lost eight employees. Well, actually, the lowest point we had of solo employees is right in this area here. But you're right, as far as a total number of people available, you're right, the January was our lowest. I think we got down to 59 total that could answer phones at that time. And a concern I have is now we've signed this MOU with other counties to take their overflow calls, and we don't seem to have the staff. What MOU are you referring to? With, I think it was Jesmond County. It came through here, an agreement to... Oh, that would be the agreement we have with Jesmond and Woodford County, where we are sharing our network, our computer systems. It does not affect the employees. The calls for Jesmond and Woodford County, not one call, has actually come to our center and are distributed through our selective router, our computer system, to those two entities. but our call takers or our personnel never touch those calls. They never touch those calls. That is correct. The organizational chart you have here? Yes. Are all those people currently in those positions? The ones with, well, this was in June, And so we've had one retirement on here where the name is for Mr. Gary Clay, but all the other names are correct and are filled. Okay. And the bottom where we have the number where there's just a position title but not names, those are not all filled. Okay. Okay, and so who is, do you have, are there acting supervisors? Yes, we have two acting supervisors right now. And who are they? Michelle Gay and Eric Beauregard. They would fall under the PDHQ, which is a police department headquarters site. And how long have they been acting? Once Gary retired in December, so it was starting January. And so in that area, the police headquarters, we have five supervisors that supervise line staff, and they have eight people reporting to them each. And do they take calls? They will if they need to, yes. The other thing I would be very interested, I still think there's a pretty big problem with management, and that may be lack of training of your managers and, you know, issues with morale. Do you do exit interviews when people leave? Yes, we do. And do you keep copies of those? It's a verbal interview in my office. It's not a formal interview. I do not have a set of questions I go through. So you don't do exit interviews, really? I mean, you talk to them when they leave. That is correct. So there's no documentation of those exit interviews? That is correct. What about supervisor evaluations? From which standpoint? As you mentioned before, the 360 evaluation or my evaluation of them? Huh? Or my evaluation of the supervisor? Either. Yes, we have evaluations of the supervisor, yes. And how often are they done? Those are done annually. Okay. And I assume they are in their personnel files? That would be correct, yes. What is the – here, and these are questions you can get back to me on. Okay. Average time on the job. if you took your total employees that you currently are maintaining, how long have they been on what would be the average time? And also, now, is Ms. Perry still in the PSAP management position? She still has that position, but we reassigned her, and the four supervisors there no longer report to her. They report to me directly, similar to the supervisors at the police headquarters. And was that, was she needed somewhere else? Yes, she was. And so what's she doing now? She's actually here in this building assisting me with the administration of the 911 department. Okay. Given the lack of, first of all, I feel like it's very important that exit interviews are documented with a clear set of questions and training of supervisors on specialized training for supervising these entities. These are life and death calls these folks get. If it's understaffed, then there's nobody there to answer the call. And if it rings and rings and rings and they don't get an answer, somebody can die in a fire, heart attack, whatever. These are critical positions. It's a life safety issue. and I have grave concern that there still are some pretty significant management problems here. I would like to look into hiring an outside consultant to do a review. And in the meantime, I guess I'd like to find out the policies and procedures for discipline, leave time, sick leave, disciplinary actions that are ongoing or have been taken. And I don't know if I need to do an open records request on that or if you can just give it to me. But I think this is a really serious matter, and I remain very concerned. Thank you. Thanks, Council Member Lawless. Council Member Crosby is next. Thank you. I have a few questions. First, you mentioned that you have part-time employees working for you. Do they go through the same training in Richmond that your full-time employees go through? We only hire them if they've been certified within the last year, yes. So every part-time employee you have working for you has been certified within the past year? That is correct. Okay. I asked this before, but I'm going to ask it again. Does everyone who takes calls go through training? Yes. Everyone. Everyone in the telecommunication series, which are the only ones we allow to take calls, have been certified by the state and continue to do in-service training every year. So would somebody from the fire department be able to take calls, and they would have to go through training every year? Yes. We do use firefighter personnel on an emergency basis to fill in the third spot at the fire headquarters when needed, and we use them, and they're only allowed to handle administrative calls. So, but they haven't gone through the training? No, they have not. They never had. But they take calls? They'll do administrative calls, yes. Has there ever been an instance since you've been director where there's been all fire personnel working in the call center, for example, for a staff meeting? No. I had requested the KSP requirements. You mentioned I was trying to learn more about the process with E911 when this first came up, and we had asked to attend a meeting, and you cited that you follow the KSP requirements for communication centers, which I think I requested those back in February, and I've not received anything. I did get an answer regarding the open meetings requirements, and I think we've got that settled. but could this committee please get a copy of the KSP requirements so that we can understand a little better? I mean, you're citing those in your communication desk, but yet I don't think we know what they are. And that was one thing that I specifically requested was what are the requirements? You mentioned last meeting that you lose funding if you don't have everybody trained. And yet today we're hearing that, indeed, that there are people who fill in on an emergency basis who are not certified. And I think we need to really clarify exactly what the requirements are and what kind of training is required. And it appears to me that we may be in violation if we're using, even on an emergency basis, people who have not gone through the training or certifications in the past year, regardless of what they do. Actually, I did not say that. I said they will take administrative calls. They're not allowed to take 911 calls. Are they allowed to dispatch calls? No. Are they allowed to – wait a minute, let me find my notes. So they cannot dispatch, they cannot – and they cannot take – they can only take administrative calls. They are instructed just to handle administrative calls. Now, can I say that 100% of the time that's all they do? No. I'm sure they might jump in, but they've been instructed to do administrative calls only. Well, what would be an instance where they jump in? Because that would be a violation of... Not necessarily, because if you're only a part-time employee or a part-time telecommunicator, you do not need to be certified. However, that's the state standard. Our standard is we want all our people certified. At the last meeting, you said that all people had to be certified for you to get funding. and that you receive federal funding and state funding and that everybody had to be certified and that, nope, if they were not certified, they could not do this. I said that the, let me clarify, the state requirement is for all full-time telecommunicators or anyone who works as a full-time telecommunicator has to be certified. If you're part-time, you do not have to meet those requirements. However, all the part-time employees we hired, which were in that chart, we require that they are certified in the past. Well, I think it would be helpful if, once again, like at least I know I requested to be able to prepare for this meeting, those requirements, especially the KSP requirements, because that's what you cite very specifically to me that you have been going by, and then also understanding when somebody does jump in, why they would jump in. because, I mean, we obviously, this is being discussed, and people know it's being discussed, so I'm getting conflicting reports of exactly what is going on. I'm being told at times if there's a time of emergency where you might be on a staff meeting, an emergency staff meeting, that there are people who are not certified, who are public safety personnel filling in so that you all can have a staff meeting, which to me would be a clear violation of your own requirements to be able to get funding. And then my next question would be, do we pay people such as, I don't know if police ever jumps in, but I know fire does, as you stated, do we pay them over time to fill those functions? Yes, let me address both those points. The first one is I am unaware where you're getting information, so it's hard for me to rebuttal those. But I have never staffed my center so we could have staff meetings with people who were not qualified. The second is when firefighters are used in the fire location, they do receive, I believe it's called, unscheduled overtime per their contract. And does E911 pay that out of the budget? Okay. I'll provide you when I get the information as to maybe more specific time frames that I'm referring to. I'll stop. Okay. One thing I did hear Council Member Crosby ask for that may help us moving forward are those KSP requirements and what positions must fall under those KSP requirements and which ones don't. So if someone's taking an administrative call, does it fall under that? that sort of thing. There's actually two sets of requirements. They're KSP requirements, which I apologize. I thought they were sent as attachment with the open records, with the meeting request. It's a contract that we have with KSP so we could use their services. The other is requirements of the CMRS board, which are the 9-1-1-1 board of the state, which is where we do receive state funding. If you'll get those to Paul, and then we'll include it in our next packet. No problem. Thank you. Council Member Henson is next. Thank you, Chair. David, the last sheet that you had up on the screen, it showed your percentage of turnover. Okay. Yes. And I noticed the average staffing, does that say 64? Yes, that's the average number of people we have full-time for that year. So basically I took that bar chart before and took how many we had per month and did an average over so I could get a percentage. So in those years, 67, 64, I think that's 63, 64 is the average for the entire fiscal year of solo employees we had. So typically you were 35 percent below your staff level? My maximum staff level is 75, so you're correct. I mean, so 75 is the max I'm available to have. 70 is where we would like to be at a minimum. Okay. Because I was just, you know, I think the reason all this came about is because of the staff, the communicators not being able to use their vacation time because you were understaffed. So I was just curious if it's lower, if your average staffing level is lower than it should be. Well, it is. I mean, you see the average over the last four years is around 64, around 65 people. We would like to be at 70 minimum. However, I've never been there since I've supervised this group, nor have they been for multiple years before that. And you're right. Staffing is the number one problem in our area, which goes to the large accumulations and a lot of other factors. So our number one priority actually is getting staff in and trained in solo stage. It is our top priority, and a lot of other things do get set aside so we can try to reach that goal. Yeah, I was just curious if you were looking at maybe the qualifications for the job. Are the expectations too high? Are you not getting enough applicants? We get a lot of applicants. I mean, enough qualified. A lot of qualified. As the one slide showed, we had over 60 applicants, only five qualified for a dispatcher. So what we've learned is it's much more conducive and more successful if we breed from within and take people that are call takers and move them up. And actually on this area here, you can see the number of promotions we've had. Right. And of those eight, seven are still working for us. So that's a great retention rate, and obviously we encourage that. Okay. I agree with Council Member Lawless on, you know, and I've expressed to you before the seriousness. If a person calls 911 and it rings nine times, that's not a good thing. Because we know that if someone stopped breathing, breathing that time is of the essence. Yeah, you're exactly right. I mean, the answer time and dispatch time are another statistics we watch consistently, and we showed that last time that we ensure that over 98% of our calls are answered in 10 seconds and over 99 in 20, and that's above the national average, and it's something we stress for. However, it can always be better. We do have a lot of abandoned calls, people hanging up, and we also have calls that go beyond that. And when you do a volume like us, 1% is still 3,000. So, you know, you have to get into the high 99s to get to an acceptable level. Right. Okay. Well, thank you. Council Member Myers is next. That's from previous. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Lawless, you want to wrap it up for us? I have two questions. And one is, do you keep a record of how many calls are taken and who takes them? We don't do it by individual. No, we do not. So there's no way to really track. And how often are there less than the optimum number of staff people taking calls? No, the way we back into that is when call answering takes longer than 10 seconds, and we can see there's a problem there. What? We review the time it takes to answer and dispatch a call, and when you find it going over acceptable levels, you can see where there's a problem. But we do have minimum standards, and we meet those as far as staffing. Okay. At this point, I still think that, and you're saying Mr. Beauregard was put in the acting position this past January. Yes, after Mr. Clay retired. And so it was. January of 2010. Yes. And Michelle Gay is the other person who's acting as well. Okay. I tried to find out if there was a state body, such as the state auditor's office, that we could turn to. Council Member Myers just informed me that there's an internal audit that he's on the board that's independent from, they work independently from the administration and from, can you say a little bit more about that? Vicki, can you turn the light up, please? Council Member Myers, do you know what the internal, is she talking about our internal audit? Right. I just had a sidebar with Council Member Lawless, and I just explained to her that I doubted that she could get the votes to have an outside consultant come in. and look at whatever it is that she wants looked at, and that we have an internal auditor that works in the government that could perform that function if that's what she wanted done. And told her that I was on the audit board. Actually, me and Council Member Lane are on the audit board. They do a fantastic job. They're independent, extremely well-respected. And I was just saying to her that I think that if you want something looked at, that would be the avenue to go rather than trying to hire an outside consultant to do it. And they take requests from individual council members? They do. The audit board that we sit on would be convened for a meeting, and we would discuss the request. And then the auditor, I think what they do is do an initial look to see if there's anything there to further investigate. And then he reports back to the board and gives us a recommendation of whether or not we should go forward with an audit. And then the board discusses the priority of that audit if he chooses to go forward. Okay. Council Member Lawless, does that sound like something you'd like to do? Yes, I would like to refer this to the internal audit, and that as a starting point to address the management issues, disciplinary actions, turnover, how many people are taking calls, are firefighters who have not been trained taking calls, who's taking the calls, et cetera. So that's my motion is to turn it over to the Internal Audit Board for auditing the management of E911. Okay. There's a motion. Is there a second? There's a second from Council Member Crosby. Discussion? Council Member Lane. Good. Yes, I was just going to say, if you do want to refer something to internal audit, the appropriate way would be to send a letter with an outline of what it is you want them to look at, thanks to something that is inappropriate or whatever, and then they will review that and bring it to the board. Okay. So you don't really need a motion. We don't need a council. Do it independently. Okay, so maybe I'll join Councilmember Crosby in submitting that letter. That sounds like that's a plan. Okay. Let us know, and if we need to as a committee to do something, we can do that, but the two of you want to do that right now, that would be great. Yeah, I mean, whatever suits the chair, I just want to get it done. Sure. If the two of you would like to do that, that would be fine. If we need to follow up as a committee, we can do that. I probably will at some point, but I'm willing to take it. You want to withdraw your motion? Yes, I'll withdraw my motion. Okay. Council Member Crosby, and then we'll wrap it up. Yeah, Mr. Lucas, do you all provide information to your uncertified call takers as to what kind of calls they can take? Are they given any training on that, or are they verbally told? Who are you referring to specifically? Anybody who's taking a call who has not gone through the training that you have referred to. As I stated, we do not have any that take emergency calls that are not certified. Okay. Any of your people who have taken administrative calls, are they provided any type of policy, either written or verbally, or which way that is clear to them that they are not to be taking emergency calls because they can't. Yes. My question was which way, verbally or written, where they provided a written copy? Both. Okay, thank you. If there are no more questions for Director Lucas, thank you for being here. I'll ask for a motion. Motion and a second to adjourn. Thank you. All in favor? All right, let's go. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.