DAUPHIN COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
Workshop Meeting
Wednesday, April 11, 2007 (10:00am)

MEMBERS PRESENT

Jeff Haste, Chairman
George P. Hartwick, III, Secretary

Dominic D. DiFrancesco, II, Vice Chairman—ABSENT

STAFF PRESENT

Chad Saylor, Chief Clerk; William Tully, Esq., Solicitor; Marie E. Rebuck, Controller; Randy Baratucci, Director of Purchasing; Leila McAdoo, Solicitor's Office; Kay Sinner, Personnel; Edgar Cohen, Director of Facilities Maintenance; Lena Martinez-Fure, Commissioners' Office; Tom Guenther, Director of IT; Diane McNaughton, Commissioners' Office; Scott Burford, Deputy Chief Clerk; Brandon Handwerk, Commissioners' Office; Sharon Chatman, Human Services Office; Greg Schneider, Budget & Finance; Elke Moyer, Human Services Office; Steve Shaver, Director DCEMA; DJ Sabalusky, Commissioners' Office; Gary Serhan, Controller's Office; Stephen Libhart, DA's Office; Dan Eisenhower, MH/MR Director; Jack Harlacker, DCEMA; Dan Kern, Director Schaffner Youth Center; Sara Steckbeck, Schaffner Youth Center; Dominick DeRose, Warden DCP; Brenda Hoffer, Commissioners' Office; Richie Martz, Commissioners' Office; Guy Beneventano, Solicitor's Office; Mark Mattern, DCEMA; Craig Powers, DCEMA; Cindy Williams, DCEMA; Marshall Mirachi, DCEMA; Brian Wertz, DCEMA; Elizabeth Nichols, DCP; Erica Baum, DCP and Jena Wolgemuth, Commissioners' Office.

GUESTS PRESENT

Garry Lenton, ABC 27 News, WGAL 8 News and family of Stork Pin recipients.

MINUTES

CALL TO ORDER

Mr. Haste, Chairman of the Board, called the meeting to order at 10:00 a.m.

MOMENT OF SILENCE

Everyone observed a moment of silence.

PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

Everyone stood for the Pledge of Allegiance.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Mr. Haste: We have three sets of meeting minutes that will be taken up at next week's meeting.

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

Mr. Haste: We are at the point in time in the meeting for public participation. Is there anyone that would like to address the Board at this time?

Rev. Taylor: I'm Rev. Alvin Q. Taylor. Good morning to the Commissioners and the public. I just have some concerns that I would like to address as a public person, taxpayer and then as a candidate. As you well know I am running. As a taxpayer I saw your brochure from last night's meeting. It was candidate's night at East Hanover. It talks about cutting legal costs in half and I thought that was great, but I have a question as a taxpayer. I understand the legal system and all of that, but I'm having problems when you have a Court Order on something and you have the write up in the paper about my Dauphin County Commissioner Candidate Wins Ballot Slots and then the last paragraph or two it says "Taylor re-filed his petition Friday, he needs 250 signatures to qualify as far as I'm concerned he has done everything he has to do" said Steve Chiavetta, the Chief of Elections. The petition will remain open to challenge until Friday. I understand that part, but what I'm having problems with and I hope you can help me out with is this, if we are about cutting legal costs in half and I have already expended almost $5,000 in this matter, when did the decision, was it made by the Commissioners, the Solicitor or Mr. Chiavetta's Office, the Election Bureau to pursue this to Commonwealth Court. Basically that is a taxpayer matter. If we are truly concerned about legal costs, because you and I know that in the Court Room that day, they had about seven of the County's attorneys there as well as the Bureau of Elections. How much money does that cost the taxpayer when you're pursuing it. As a taxpayer I feel like I'm paying my tax dollars to fight myself in a Court to represent the community, which I have already done for 31 years. I'm just having problems with that.

The other part that goes with that is you know I teach at Rutgers in the summertime. I have not heard the County Commissioners make a statement on where they stand with regard to the comments Imus, the radio disc jockey. I haven't heard you make a statement about what is going on in our government, state government with the Valentine's Day snow fall, with any of the things that matter to the people on where you stand. We haven't heard it. I'm going to follow up on it, that is true. The first matter is going to Commonwealth Court at taxpayer expense. I know it is a political thing, but you need to explain to the taxpayer. I'm paying my taxes, but I don't feel like I have to pay my taxes for you to beat me up in a political campaign. I just want to know if that is authorized by the Solicitor, who is under you? Is it authorized by the Commissioners themselves or is it authorized by the Director of the Elections Bureau, who again is under you? I think we need to have that answer. I think it should be advertised. I have gone to these "Meet the Candidates Night" and last night was a very difficult night, because afterwards people asked me the question. Who are you fighting? I said I'll find out tomorrow and I'll email you like I always do. If you could help me to help them with this information. I just had a call this morning as I walked in here, the same question. They are starting to hear it now and it has gone from the District Court, with the ruling of Judge Evans in my favor. Now you are going to Commonwealth Court, what kind of accountability of finances and tax money is that? I can't answer it. I told them that I would come in today, which I had not planned to do, but I would ask you, and the answer you give me is the answer I will send to them. If you could help me.

Mr. Haste: Just for the record, this will be your last political stand here. That is why there are candidate's nights. This is for County business and not for political statements. Be very careful of that, because the next time I'll stop you.

Rev. Taylor: I appreciate that.

Mr. Haste: The matter that you are referring to as I am sure you are aware has nothing to do with the Board of Commissioners. It is the Election Board.

Rev. Taylor: Which is you.

Mr. Haste: No, you sat right here and were either not paying attention or just didn't understand. We made it clear on two occasions that the Commissioners are not the Election Board. In the years in which we run we are prohibited from being members of the Election Board. It is an independent Board appointed by the President Judge. You were here when they sat here. It is their decision to make on whether to go forward. Just as anything else, if they feel that the Court was in error in a decision in backing up the Director, it is their responsibility to file an appeal, not just for you, but for any other candidate in the future. It is a matter and they had the right to get that point clarified as well. There may have been some attorneys there that had an interest, but they are not County attorneys. We have four and a half attorneys. I'm not sure who the other two and half were. As far as the legal fees, we have cut them by over half from the previous Board. If Bill Tully was there and whether he was there doing that, defending that department or if he was in his office reading a brief, because that is part of his responsibility. It was no additional cost to the taxpayers to qualify something that the Court ruled. If you continue to say that was costing taxpayers' money that is wrong.

Rev. Taylor: Well, they will get paid from our monies, eventually.

Mr. Haste: Whether they sit in their office and read briefs or show up here they get paid the same amount.

Rev. Taylor: I appreciate the clarification. I did want to bring that to your attention. The other thing as I was saying there is no statement from the County Commissioners...

Mr. Haste: This is a body that runs County government. We are not the legislature. I'm not running for President or Governor and when that happens we will make those kinds of statements. We are here to do business at the County and I just had a discussion before that is what we will do. The show is left for somewhere else. Those kinds of statements are appropriate for a candidate's night if someone wants to know them. This bench that we sit here is not political. We are about County business. What the President of the United States, the Governor of the Commonwealth, the King of Egypt does is not going to be our way until it affects us. When it affects County business then we will speak out. Other than that it is left for the political meetings and that is where it will be discussed.

Rev. Taylor: I did attend your forum you had R U Tired. As you know and that basically was a matter that you felt was important enough that you would meet with the community. It's that same community that is waiting to hear what is your take on Imus...

Mr. Haste: I have not had one person, not one, in any meetings that I have been at from morning to night asking me my opinion on that. Not one. You are the first, but you are a politician now.

Rev. Taylor: It is a community matter.

Mr. Haste: I have not had one person from the community ask me.

Rev. Taylor: It is there and I will have them forward the emails to you.

Mr. Haste: Is there anyone else for public participation? (There was none.)

DEPARTMENT DIRECTORS/GUESTS

1. Commissioners' Proclamation honoring April 9-13, 2007 as "National Telecommunicators' Week".
   1. EMA Staff: Steve Shaver, Jack Harlacker, Mark Mattern, Craig Powers, Cindy Williams, Marshall Mirachi, and Brian Wertz.

Mr. Hartwick: In the absence of my colleague, Commissioner DiFrancesco, who is the oversight of our Emergency Management Agency, we will recognize a group of individuals who oftentimes you only know them by their voice. These individuals are also extremely committed, people who had a higher calling to public service. They are not there for a pay check. They are there because of their ability to effectively connect people in times of crisis, to ensure an appropriate and timely response and follow-up to ensure that police officers, emergency management folks and EMT's get to the locations where there is an actual emergency. We are very excited to proclaim this week as "Public Safety Telecommunicators Week".

(Mr. Hartwick read the Proclamation.)

Office of County Commissioner
Dauphin County, Pennsylvania

Proclamation

We, the Dauphin County Board of Commissioners, take enormous pride and pleasure in recognizing the exceptional composure, compassion and communication abilities of our exceedingly valuable, but often undervalued, Public Safety Telecommunicators;

Whereas, 45 full-time and four part-time Public Safety Telecommunicators serve the citizens of Dauphin County by responding to their most critical emergencies, providing telephonic life-saving medical instructions at all hours of the day and night, and dispatching within seconds the fire, police, and medical units needed in an emergency;

Whereas, although they are often invisible in the public safety equation, the critical functions performed by professional Public Safety Telecommunicators have directly contributed to the protection of life and property in Dauphin County;

Whereas, already this year, Dauphin County's expertly trained and always dependable telecommunicators have answered and responded to 178,758 calls;

Whereas, telecommunicators have fielded the entire gamut of emergency calls, ranging from young women in labor, to teenagers contemplating suicide, to witnesses to horrific crimes and car accidents, each time patiently asking questions of panic-stricken callers and bringing life-saving assistance as fast as humanly possible;

Therefore, in grateful tribute to the life-saving work of the calm, competent and caring voices at the other end of every 911 call, we join the 253,300 residents of Dauphin County and the greater Commonwealth in proclaiming the week of April 8-14, 2007 as "National Telecommunicators Week;" and we honor, commend and thank our county telecommunicators for serving as the vital link between those in need of help and those trained, poised and eager to render life-saving aid, each and every time a crisis strikes.

(Applause was given and pictures were taken.)

Mr. Haste: We have stork pins and Mr. Harlacker and Mr. Shaver are going to talk about that.

Mr. Shaver: Actually I'm going to let Jack do that. These folks actually work and interface with Jack on a regular basis.

Mr. Harlacker: This is the first year that we are going to honor the telecommunicators who delivered babies. As you know we are nationally accredited and we have protocols that we follow. We ask these certain questions whether it is three in the morning or three in the afternoon. We have identified five telecommunicators who actually delivered babies through the phone, through instructions prior to the ambulance's arrival. This is the first year that we have certificates, as well as stork pins. They are pink and blue accordingly. I'll call them up.

Mark Mattern - he delivered a baby girl February 17, 2005.
Craig Powers - he delivered a baby girl February 16, 2007.

The next three are fairly new employees. They have been here less than a year and had the opportunity to deliver babies already.

Marshall Mirachi - he delivered a baby girl.
Cindy Williams - she delivered a baby boy September 17, 2006.
Brian Wertz - he delivered a baby girl.

Mr. Harlacker: It is unique that three brand-new telecommunicators had the opportunity to do this. We are trying to recognize them on an annual basis for babies and cardiac saves through CPR instructions and things like that.

(The Commissioners handed out the pins.)

1. Erica L. Baum and Steve Libhart.
   1. Presentation of the 1st Quarter Results of the Restrictive Intermediate Punishment Program.

Mr. Haste: If you recall, we talked about the difficulties that we were having with the Drug and Alcohol Commission and some of the funds that had to be returned for a lack of activity. During that, the Board made it very clear and Commissioner Hartwick made it very clear that we would have periodic reports on what is happening. We do have a monthly report at our Prison Board Meeting. We felt that it was important that they come here quarterly to report to the general public as well.

Ms. Baum: My name is Erica Baum. I'm the Case Management Specialist for the Restrictive Intermediate Punishment Program. At the request of the Commissioners I am pleased to present the first Quarter results. The month of January, I received 75 referrals. Twenty of those referrals were eligible candidates for the program. Eighteen evaluations were given. Four individuals were refused. Three of those individuals were either active or pending in treatment at that time and one was unsuccessfully discharged.

The month of February, 55 referrals were received. Twenty-three were eligible. Twelve evaluations were given. Nine were refused. Eight were pending or active in treatment and none were discharged.

For the month of March, 58 referrals were given. Sixteen were eligible. Twelve evaluations were given. Four were refused and eleven were pending or active in treatment.

This gives a total for the first quarter of 188 referrals, 59 eligible candidates, 42 evaluations, 17 refused and 22 that are active or pending in treatment at this time. It is actually ten people that are active and 12 that are pending to be put into treatment soon and one that was unsuccessfully discharged. The majority of the referrals that I received were from the Public Defender's Office, the District Attorney's Office, Adult Probation and self referrals. I also received referrals from Pre-Trial Services, the Commissioners and Dauphin County Prison employees. Of the 59 eligible candidates, 39% are active or pending in treatment. It is important to note that the ones that are in treatment, the casework is continued by myself while they are involved with treatment. I either meet with them personally or receive weekly reviews from the facility that they are at. Twenty-three are eligible that were denied due to open warrants in other counties or from a criminal justice decision. Six were refused by the client themselves. Eighteen percent have been assessed and are continued to be reviewed on a weekly basis for possible eligibility in the future for the program or appropriateness for the program. Eight percent were released from Dauphin County Prison before receiving a recommendation. Three percent have been recommended to complete the program that they are currently enrolled in and 3% were released to bail and will be scheduled while they were out. Any questions?

Mr. Hartwick: None that we haven't already gone through and elaborated on a number of times. I think if you can recall in 18 months of the program prior to the Commissioners directing that this individual be an employee of the County and directly at the Prison, I think we received 17.

Mr. Libhart: We received 17 referrals and 11 people were sentenced and placed into treatment.

Mr. Hartwick: So in 18 months we had 11 people in treatment and in three months so far we got 22, which is a significant improvement over where we were at before. I think the most important thing is communication and almost daily communication is happening right now between yourself, Pre-Trial Services, the District Justice Offices, Public Defender's and the District Attorney's to make sure that you understand and know who may be eligible. You also noted a number of barriers that they needed to overcome. One of them had a reduced sentence and they are not serious about treatment and trying to assess their needs to see what kind of treatment programs they are going to put themselves in within the Prison. One of the critical concerns were the people who can really get out of the level one and level two offenders, as defined by the criminal justice system and as a result I think the District Attorney's Office has now gone after and is seeking a grant to actually place those other level one and level two offenders in an alternative treatment program as well, which is going to be critical. They are going to find a great deal more eligible in those level one and level two offenders. Many individuals may be going in and out of treatment depending upon some of their decisions that they make in the future. The idea that we are getting them out of Prison and getting them into a treatment program, and identifying future needs and applying for additional monies is a 180 degree turnaround from where we were at prior to this where we had to send money back to the State. Erica I know this is your first time presenting this and you have done a good job. Don't be that nervous. I want to commend you on the work that you are doing. I know there is more to do, but I know you have been busting your butt with assessments, meeting with individuals from all of those agencies and obviously the results are showing in the numbers.

Mr. Haste: I spoke with Ed this morning and I asked him about the numbers. Maybe just clarify a little bit on why people even though they may be referred and eligible are not really eligible for the program. What Ed was telling me today was basically because of the severity of the crime.

Mr. Libhart: There are a few factors that may contribute to why somebody although just by the numbers would appear to be eligible is deemed ineligible by criminal justice discretion. One of those would be the severity of their past crimes. They may just be habitual offenders who ride the cusp so to speak of what an offense would automatically disqualify you from. It still warrants a second look by the DA and typically they will say that is just not the type of person you want to put into that treatment program. Let's be frank, in some instances, confinement is the appropriate punishment for somebody. In other instances it could just be you are trying to avoid what we call the "fox in the hen house". Their criminal history may not indicate any kind of violent crime, but it leads one to believe that this person isn't as much a user as they are a dealer. If that is the case you don't want to give a dealer access to a bevy of potential future clients. Those would be the two primary reasons even though they would be eligible would be otherwise refused just to abate any concerns. As far as people self refusing that kind of is more beneficial than us making a determination three months into treatment that this person is just not appropriate, because they don't want to be here. In large part they are not wasting funds that could be used on somebody that does.

Mr. Haste: In the group that moves forward they are the ones that we may have the best impact on, because not only is the system willing to work, but they as an individual made the decision that they want to change their way of life.

Mr. Libhart: Correct. Even though the way this program works is if someone pleads guilty and receives treatment, yes the caveat is you are going to receive treatment and an intermediate punishment sentence in lieu of what may be incarceration. If the person doesn't want to do the treatment it is not going to be successful. More than likely this system is going to see them again. The people that are entering this program want the treatment, because by this time hopefully something is going off like I need treatment, I don't want to be in this system, I don't want my name associated with this kind of behavior any more. That is typically what we are seeing now.

Mr. Hartwick: With this population that would also show in the number of folks who would be discharged that are currently in treatment that we just flat out either do something that would get them kicked back to Prison or obviously they wouldn't want to participate. So far we only had one of those.

Mr. Libhart: If you have 22 people, active in treatment, and only one person has been refused this program is doing the right thing. Obviously just because of the nature of an addiction, some people aren't going to be perfect all the way through treatment. For someone to be revoked it has to be a serious matter, serious enough to just say no you don't get a second bite of the apple. We are going to have to take you out of the program. I think that gives a great deal of credit not only to the program itself, but also to the screening process and the evaluation process is placing these people in treatment.

Mr. Haste: Do you know when we are going to hear back from PCCD on the expansion?

Mr. Libhart: It is a completely separate funding stream. I don't have any idea as yet when to expect a response. Typically I see about a two months turnaround from the time of submission to the time of receipt of a letter saying you are either awarded or not being awarded the grant. By my recollection we probably submitted that grant roughly three weeks to a month ago. Maybe in another month we should hear. It tends to come in next to the end of a fiscal quarter.

Mr. Haste: You will let us know when that happens?

Mr. Libhart: Absolutely, you will have to sign to take it.

1. Daniel P. Kern, Facility Director and Sara Steckbeck, Asst. Director
   1. Presentation of Schaffner 2006 Annual Report

Mr. Kern: I'm going to actually have Sara Steckbeck speak to this report since she was the author.

Ms. Steckbeck: We are pleased to review with you our 2006 Annual Report. Enclosed in the report for your review would be our updated organizational chart, which is on Page 1. When you would get into 2006 statistics, we looked at physical interventions, which are called restraints at the Center. Due to the reality of our client and the nature of the work that we do and our secure environment, there are times when we do need to utilize physical intervention to clients who are a threat to themselves or someone else, be that staff or another client. Throughout 2006 and ongoing and even prior to 2006, we have initiated a safe interventions project or committee to really take a look at reducing the number of overall physical interventions, which do become a liability so to speak when you have client or staff injuries and just for the wellness of the client at large is to reduce those numbers. In 2006 what you see is an overview. For detention for the year we had 298 interventions and 96 for shelter, which is a dramatic decrease from 2005 numbers.

We broke down the total for every restraint in detention and shelter by category into standing, seated, supine or prone interventions, least to most restrictive.

Mr. Hartwick: Can you explain all four of those to me?

Ms. Steckbeck: A standing intervention is the staff and client involved are standing. It is a hold that is the least restrictive available to staff. We utilize an upper torso extended arm assist. All of our holds our staff are trained in for the safety of both staff and client. Our staff is retrained annually. They are recertified and they go through refreshers. The holds are to control the physical acting out of the client, whether that is a punch or bite.

Seated is a seated hold where the client would be seated and they would be held in some sort of hold that we train in, which would be a seated upper torso, seated cradle assist. When we do have to physically intervene with clients we look at the client's size, past abuse issues, whether the client is asthmatic. We do serve pregnant females so we have to take that into account.

The supine would be a face up hold. Someone would be on their back. Asthmatics and pregnant females we would have to take into consideration when utilizing a hold.

Prone would be face down. What you would want to see and I think what you see on the chart is standing should be the predominant hold used, the least restrictive hold. The whole time we are exercising extensive verbal de-escalation techniques. That is really our focus with staff. If we don't need to go hands-on we definitely don't want to.

Mr. Kern: The residents really ultimately dictate where you start at. Certainly the least restrictive is where you want to be. They are very spontaneous, explosive, so you may go right to a floor intervention.

Ms. Steckbeck: This is an issue that we will continue to focus on through our training.

What contributed to overtime at our Center was overcrowding, which I will touch on a little bit later. We also have watches that we can institute, increase supervision for clients with mental health issues. That was also a contributor. Average daily population would be the next. In detention we are licensed to serve 36 clients in shelter. At the time of this report it was 25. It is now 27. You can see for most of 2006 and ongoing, we have been over capacity. When that happens in detention, we are able to utilize a standing court order that is signed by our hearing examiner and we had utilized other detention centers to take care of the overflow population. Those being Lancaster County, the Cornell Abraxas Youth Center in South Mountain, Berks County and York County.

Critical issues in 2006 obviously the numbers have been a big issue for us. We did expand our shelter program to what we previously had, 27 beds. Length of stay initiative and triage team meetings are two collaborative efforts in Dauphin County that include members from many of the different offices be it Children & Youth, Juvenile Probation, MH/MR and different service providers to talk about kids that are in detention and shelter and focus on the length of stay. The goal is really to get our clients moved on to wherever they need to be, whatever is appropriate for them within 30 days or less. That also affects our numbers. If the system is working for our kids in the right way, they are going to move on to where they need to be.

Mr. Haste: What about drug and alcohol?

Ms. Steckbeck: CMU.

Mr. Hartwick: Our mental retardation contracted agency.

Mr. Haste: Where does drug and alcohol enter into the program?

Ms. Steckbeck: When I talk a little bit about programs later on, one of the things that we are doing with the Executive Commission is that we have weekly meetings for kids' groups, depending on the needs. We do a specialized group for kids.

Mr. Haste: Are they at this meeting?

Ms. Steckbeck: That I'm not sure of.

Mr. Haste: Shouldn't they be?

Ms. Steckbeck: Any referrals that are required on the drug and alcohol side, we have met kind of separately. We have made that another very important issue.

Mr. Kern: The length of stay.

Mr. Haste: I know at least on the adult side. I can't imagine it is any different on the juvenile side. Oftentimes it is both. It is dual diagnosis.

Ms. Steckbeck: Those kids are difficult to place. I'm not sure if there is a specific team member on that committee, but probation would be responsible for initiating referrals.

Mr. Haste: Can you make sure? Even though the Commission is not part of the County yet, next year it will be I don't want to let that part slip.

Mr. Hartwick: Do you have a caseworker from the Executive Commission that is out at your facility on a regular basis?

Ms. Steckbeck: No, I believe there was a permanent post there. I know we had revisited that.

Mr. Kern: I don't think it has been a permanent post for at least the past four or five years. It has just been recently that we got the Drug and Alcohol Commission at the facility as far as providing services to individual clients.

Mr. Hartwick: I directed the Executive Director to have somebody out there once a week and from what I understand is that they have not done that.

Mr. Kern: They do come once a week.

Mr. Hartwick: To do assessments of every individual that may be eligible for a referral.

Mr. Kern: I believe that is where they want it. There is a plan in place to incorporate more services. I can't speak to whether they are doing each and every individual.

Mr. Hartwick: That will be a commitment of this Board that when we do take over the Executive Commission on January 1. There is no reason why anybody who should be eligible for D&A services that are at Schaffner shouldn't be having the assessment and going through the exact same process. That is not a treatment center. We should make sure that we try to get all individuals who are eligible through the same process. We got everybody at the table and directed them to be at Schaffner and so far it does not appear that they are coordinating the efforts that we had asked them.

Mr. Kern: Not what you just mentioned.

Mr. Hartwick: That will change on January 1.

Ms. Steckbeck: In an attempt to better look at some of the issues related to the overcrowding and the length of stay, we will be publishing a detailed report in the near future that will address those specific issues. At the end of your report, what we did was to highlight some of the important programs that we had throughout the year that despite the overcrowding and the difficult clients that we work with, we were able to provide many field trips to our clients, whether they were educational or incentive based where they had to earn a certain privilege level to join in. We included some pictures. Community service is a huge cornerstone of our shelter program. We hope that when we take kids out into the community that they can be in a position to help others and that gives them a different view. They really do enjoy those trips. We do a lot of work at a nursing home in Middletown where the kids have helped to build a wheelchair garden, they painted furniture, mulched gardens, take residents to bingo, they sit and chat and it is just as rewarding for them as it is for the people that live at the nursing home. We do a lot of work in the community in terms of planting trees on the Greenbelt, we have done programs with Lower Paxton Township Parks & Rec, we have helped at different shelters and soup kitchens throughout Harrisburg and we also try to do some picnics and things for the holidays for kids. A recent thing that we instituted in our shelter is family night, which is Monday. For right now we have kind of kept that for kids that are earning the highest privilege level in terms of going above and beyond with chores, hygiene, language and they are really making an effort in the program. We allow those youth to invite their families for a special visit where we order food and have games and the kids are allowed to participate in that. That has been successful.

Are there any questions? (There was none.)

Mr. Kern: I think there are a lot of people that are working hard at the Center, Probation and Children and Youth. The numbers certainly speak to how busy 2006 actually was, between 15 and 20 kids on average a day we were over capacity. We are still incorporating a lot of newer things in the community and doing a lot of creative stuff. We got more staff taking ownership in developing programs, the Fatherhood Initiative, the Anti-Violence. It is a mixed bag, but when you look at the staggering number of kids that we deal with each and every year through that Center we are still doing some good stuff there.

Mr. Hartwick: Instead of waiting for January 1, why don't we get together next week and I will collectively and formally put a directive to the Executive Director of the Commission on Drugs and Alcohol and develop a system by which we have a level of expectation of the participation at Schaffner.

1. Dan Eisenhauer, Director of Dauphin County MH/MR
   1. Presentation of Mental Health Annual Plan for FY 2008/2009

Mr. Eisenhauer: Thank you for the opportunity to talk to you about an overview of the Dauphin County Mental Health Plan for 2008/2009 for adults with serious mental illness. DEP has an annual requirement and each department must submit a plan. Sometimes I think the Department tries to confuse us, but we are now submitting an 08/09 Plan, while we are physically in 06/07. We are really planning ahead. Last year we had a Comprehensive Plan that we had to submit that was approximately 130 pages long. This year the guidelines and instructions were that we do what we call an "update" of last year's plan, which is really focusing on a few minor number of areas that we are going to try to focus our energies. The theme is that we are working continually on what we call system transformation. The goal of mental health services in the community now is an emphasis on recovering resiliency. Basically the consumers have more control over their treatment. There are partnerships with providers and consumers yield better outcomes, better treatment outcomes, better community stability and that housing is an important part of a person's stability in the community and that we need to focus on collaborative efforts on how we provide treatment in natural settings. Toward that end they asked us once again to review our mission and vision statement. Commissioner Hartwick can attest to the struggles that we have had from a structural point of view with both the Commonwealth and our own advisory board. I will only say that MH/MR's mission is mental health/mental retardation and early intervention and that we do not believe that it is effective to change our mission for one of our funding sources. We are working with the State to accommodate their request.

Mr. Hartwick: It is bureaucratic crap is what it is.

Mr. Eisenhauer: In the official plan, we have put forth a draft amendment to our mission statement that incorporates the principles of recovering resiliency, self-determination and family center services. There was a payment incentive last year for how missions and visions were submitted to the State. I have concerns about the requirement. The other part of our Plan is that we have a specialized homeless grant called PATH. Another requirement is that we also incorporate our PATH plan in our Mental Health Plan. It is a grant of about $73,000 that MH/MR utilizes to work more effectively with our shelter systems. Shelters serve the general population of Dauphin County. Anyone who is homeless enters a shelter, but statistically speaking about 60% to 70% of the people that come into shelters do have a diagnosis of mental illness. So, we use our PATH funds to work collaboratively with the shelters so that we provide training on how to recognize and work with people with mental illness. We also use those funds to help people get out of shelters. We do one-time rental assistance to help people get into permanent housing. That is sort of a small grant in our overall budget, but an important one that helps us work with our housing system.

The final point that we have been working on locally is collaboration with our Area Agency on Aging. As you know from Bob Burns in Aging, we are expecting a growth of older persons in Dauphin County. That is a demographic issue across Pennsylvania. The issue is that older adults in Dauphin County are considered to be an under-served population as far as receiving mental health services. Meaning, we think, statistically speaking, there are more older adults who would benefit from mental health services than are receiving it. We have been working with Aging. We expect that population to grow. We have been working with Aging to do outreach and identify how to engage older folks in services and supports. Some of the successes of the past year are that we have been able to continue our service development with Harrisburg State Hospital closure funds. We have developed a Memorandum of Understanding which defines service collaboration and service improvements in crisis response. We have been developing Memorandums of Understandings basically to improve outreach community response and crisis response. We have an MOU with our Aging Department. We are working, as you know, on the development of our jail diversion grant and one of the big changes this year is consumers have their own group. It is a consumer one group that interfaces with the County MH/MR Department to discuss what changes they would like to see on services. They became more formal and had official input into our plan this year.

Mr. Hartwick: I want the newspaper to grab — we again were promised certain things with the State Hospital closure. We sat up here and defined what the expectations were with the closure. Now, they tell me they want to move folks back into the community. One of the promises were is that the funding would keep rate with the transition. Once the dust settled from the State Hospital closure, of which all of us up here were not extremely supportive of, to say the least, and we were told that the funding would follow the closure and the individuals. This year we received a notification of flat funding, which was really a reduction in what we need for the closure in order to provide quality of services to individuals who were placed in these residential facilities. I suspect that there will be future issues with not just flat funding, but a decrease in funding once the dust has settled, which is what we predicted. We will be extremely vocal and will let the Governor know of our dissatisfaction with the commitment that he has made to follow the individuals into the community needs to be backed up with the resources in order to make this work. Actually our budget in mental health and mental retardation is tied to further reductions in Danville State Hospital with transitioning individuals in the community. While that is happening the State is keeping that level of funding, which is absolutely not going to allow us to perform the quality level of services needed to make the transition effective and give the adequate care to the individuals who have been transitioned out of the State Hospital. I will be an outspoken advocate.

Mr. Eisenhauer: I agree. In 06/07, I am concerned about the Governor's proposed budget for 07/08, much less 08/09, which is what this plan is addressing.

Mr. Haste: If my memory serves me right, you and Sandy sat there and tried to tell us it would be okay. I wasn't a believer then and obviously I understand...

Mr. Eisenhauer: They are not decreasing the funding. The concern is the growth of funding and I understand as a taxpayer no one likes to see taxes increase. I do know that it is a challenge to support programs long term. Nonetheless, I agree flat funding is not the same as increased funding.

Mr. Haste: I would ask that you put together a letter or memo that we can share with our legislators. Whether you send it out or we send it out. I tell this for you and for our staff that we make sure Senator Pat Vance is also aware of it. If you remember she is really interested, even though she is not from our County, she was very involved. I think she would appreciate us keeping her informed. She would be an advocate for us.

Mr. Eisenhauer: I would be happy to do that.

Mr. Hartwick: One of our biggest concerns is maintaining a competent staffing level in a lot of community based facilities. They are having trouble because this is a difficult population. Individuals are realizing in some cases why folks were in the State Hospital to begin with and in order to find quality staff to affectively deal with these individuals in a quality way, we need to maintain that funding and future increases in order to attract those folks.

Mr. Eisenhauer: Commissioner, you have anticipated the rest of my list of challenges. One of them is housing. As the Commissioner alluded to, direct care salaries, retention and training. Again I believe that we have done a good job of supporting people in a transition from the closure, but now we are faced with the challenge of keeping employees and the constant cost of retraining employees. They are working with difficult individuals. Direct care salaries have not kept pace with the general population. Again, it is a challenge to find good people, train them and keep them for a length of time. We are constantly rehiring and retraining.

The other challenge that we have is while we are sort of expending our resources on maintaining what we have, there is a body of evidence and what we call "evidence based practice or clinical research based practices." It has been difficult for our system to become aware of sort of the cutting edge nationally in treatment interventions and having the tools to train people on how to incorporate evidence based and research based practices and what they do. We are spending a lot of time and energy hiring and retraining. We haven't had a lot of time or energy to incorporate new ways of working into what we are doing. That is our challenge. We are making steps, but again it is a cost.

Mr. Hartwick: One of the other issues I have. I have heard from family members of individuals, the continuity of staff is a critical issue. When someone begins to understand and trust and develop a relationship with a care giver they choose to move on, it starts the process of trying to do this whole thing over and over. That is not great for the transition of an individual back into the community. It sets off all kinds of other triggers that anybody new is going to have to overcome long term barriers in order to gain the trust and begin that process again. We really need to stay on this and be an advocate for funding.

Mr. Eisenhauer: The final two items are outreach and services. We do have good collaboration with our Aging Department. The last item is wellness. Recent data that we just got suggest that people with serious mental illness their life span is 25 years less than the general population. It is a combination of lifestyle, institutionalization and medication side effects. We have been working really aggressively with our providers to institute wellness programs. Having people cut down on caffeine, smoking, increase exercise, same wellness initiatives similar to what the County is doing. We are trying to do the same thing with our consumer population. The State also asked us to identify based on those sort of successes and challenges what five system changes we'll concentrate on. Having identified those areas, we prioritized transformation to a recovery oriented system, a housing initiative. The housing initiative for us is a combination of two things. One working with the cash coalition for a ten-year blueprint, but also taking a look at our own residential services, which is trying to look at opportunities to convert structured housing that we are funding in Dauphin County with mental health funds into subsidized housing where housing authorities are paying for rent rather than our system so to speak and also looking for individualized apartment programs. Our issue is that we need to support direct care staff training and retention. The State is interested in continued State Hospital reduction. We are again interested in conversations about that, but have made no commitments. Our other issue is unserved and under served population, jail diversion program and older adults.

This is just a background so that you can understand more about what I will be putting in the letter. If you look at our current budget it looks pretty impressive. We have $5.7 million of State based funding to which the County Commissioners add a 10% match. The CHIP Funds of $12.5 million are 100% State funds and that includes the closure funds. That is the line that I will talk about a little later and that is what I'm concerned about. We have about $600,000 in Federal funds and we have about $400,000 in specialized grant funds. My concern is that CHIP line. The State has seriously not granted a cost of living adjustment on CHIP funds. That now represents almost 70% of our budget. When the State talks about a 3% COLA for MH/MR Programs that they had in the Governor's budget address it does not include the CHIP funds. It is only on the base. So, we are looking at the possibility in the Governor's budget proposal of a 3% COLA on our base funds of $5 million, but not on our primary funding source, which is CHIP funds. That is my concern and that is the concern I have about sustainability going forward. 70% of our budget is not included in the cost of living adjustment.

Mr. Haste: Make sure you spell that out.

Mr. Eisenhauer: Therein lies the problem. We have quantified what it costs. The unrestricted COLA on CHIP that we are talking about is $400,000 annually. System transformation is how we incorporate evidence based and research based programming that is $150,000. This figure of direct care staff recruitment training and retention, that is what it would cost our system to do a 4% annual increase. 80% of our budget is tied up in staff salaries and benefits. This is the cost across our entire community system to do a 4% increase annually for direct care staff. If we do engage in further State Hospital reduction, we believe we couldn't do it for less than $800,000 or on a per person basis and then outreach to older adults. That is an overview of our plan submission. Are there any questions?

Mr. Hartwick: Just a quick update on where we are with the mental health facility that is going to be operated by Gaudenzia?

Mr. Eisenhauer: We are still waiting for DEP to issue a final ruling.

Mr. Haste: Is this on the supposed stream?

Mr. Eisenhauer: Yes, the dry ditch as I call it. Pending a DEP ruling we will move forward. The Township has tentatively approved our plan.

PERSONNEL

Ms. Sinner: The first item in the Personnel Packet are the Salary Board requests. There are two. Do you have any questions on either of those? (There was none.)

In the Personnel Packet there are a couple of items that I'm going to request a vote on today. Are there any questions on the Personnel Packet? (There was none.)

Mr. Haste: Which items do you need voted on?

Ms. Sinner: New Hire #9 and also Changes #11 and #12.

It was moved by Mr. Hartwick and seconded by Mr. Haste that the Board approve New Hire #9 and Changes #11 and #12 of the Personnel Packet; motion carried.

PURCHASE ORDERS

Mr. Baratucci: You should have received your Purchase Order Packet yesterday. It is there for your review. There are no changes to it at this point, except some budget adjustments that will happen between now and next week. Do you have any questions?

Mr. Hartwick: Just the one with the HAVA that is obviously going to be reimbursed?

Mr. Baratucci: Yes, we had a discussion about that. Mike is taking care of that and it will be adjusted for next week.

Mr. Hartwick: It is coming from last year.

Mr. Baratucci: It is monies that were leftover from last year that has not been transferred, but will be done before next week.

TRAINING PACKET

Mr. Haste: Are there any items on the Training Packet, Chad?

Mr. Saylor: Commissioners, I believe we need approval on Item #6, it is a $15 charge for some Children and Youth training.

Mr. Haste: What about #4?

Mr. Saylor: It appears so.

It was moved by Mr. Hartwick and seconded by Mr. Haste that the Board approve Items #4 and #6 on the Training Packet; motion carried.

ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION

Mr. Haste: We have items on the Agenda that we will take up at the next meeting.

1. Approval to sell the following parcels from the Repository List to the following buyers:
   1. Parcel #11-10-102: 1925 N. 4th Street, to Linda Newton for $1100.00.
   2. Parcel #10-18-20: 2244 Gruber Alley, to Roosevelt Crawford for $300.00.
   3. Parcel #9-43-45: 133 Sylvan Terrace, to Angelo Rodriguez, Jr. for $300.00.
   4. Parcel #15-7-42: 1930A Forster Street, to Amy Kruleski for $350.00.
   5. Parcel #2-19-61: 331 ? Hummel Street, to Amy Kruleski for $400.00.
2. Authorization to exonerate the current and outstanding taxes on the following GSP Management Company properties:
   1. Parcel No. 29-007-077-032-0062, (80 Dogwood Dr. 32), ownerLinda Shadle.
   2. Parcel No. 34-026-005-057-0533, (57 Cedar Manor), owner Ronald Rodgers.
   3. Parcel No. 34-026-05-107-674, (107 Cedar Manor), owner Peggy Wagner. (Total $579.88)
3. Approval to refund 2007 Real Estate Taxes in regards to Parcel No. 30-013-004, 550 Willow St., for the amount of $2848.17.

SOLICITOR'S REPORT

Mr. Beneventano: We would be happy to follow-up on any additional questions you might have concerning our April 11 Report, otherwise we have nothing else to say at this time.

CHIEF CLERK'S REPORT

Mr. Saylor: I have nothing else unless there are any questions of me.

COMMISSIONERS' COMMENTS

Mr. Haste: Any other comments by the Board? (There was none.)

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

Mr. Haste: We are again at the time in the meeting for public participation. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to address the Board? (There was none.)

ADJOURNMENT

It was moved by Mr. Hartwick and seconded by Mr. Haste to adjourn the meeting, meeting adjourned.