WILLMAR — The Kandiyohi County Commission, supported by then-County Mayor Larry Kleindl and Health and Human Services Director Jenny Lippert, unanimously agreed to cancel the semi-monthly Health and Human Services Committee meeting. Almost two years later, current director Caroline Chan is encouraging her to return. However, the format is different.
“We recognize that it will positively impact our decision-making, our services and our staff,” Chan said.
At the Jan. 16 county board meeting, Chan asked the board to approve the HHS management team's plan to create a new committee that includes two county board members and county staff. This committee meets monthly and meetings are private, allowing us to delve deeper into the department's work without worrying about client privacy issues. Chan and her team also recommended at least two public work sessions per year with the full county commission, and additional work sessions as needed.
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These committee meetings and work sessions do not preclude HHS issues, contracts, and updates from being presented to the county's regular board meetings, as currently occurs. Programs, contracts, etc. that require county board approval must be addressed at regular county board meetings. Mr Chan had called for a commitment to the 2024 plan and a review at the end of the year.
“Things change quickly, so we expect to see tipping points and necessary changes throughout the next year,” Chan said.
Approval of the HHS plan was ultimately secured, but the vote was split 3-2. Voting against the bill were Commissioners Corky Berg and Roger Imdike, who had issues with the staff recommendation. One of the problems, he said, is that members do not have enough say in the development of the commission's restructuring plan and do not have enough information about the composition of the proposed commission and its mission and goals. That's what I feel.
“I'm not really happy with the recommendation because I don't have enough knowledge about what it says,” Mudike said. “Who will be on that committee and how will it work?”
Chan said it is her goal for the first work session to be held soon, during which the entire county commission will decide which commissioners will serve, help decide on the remaining members, and make some decisions. He said he would be able to set goals. And priorities. She said she felt it was not her place to decide what her committee would do.
“My intention was that it was a collective decision,” Chan said.
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Berg also expressed concern that he is not hearing enough about what is happening at HHS, one of the county's largest departments.
“I think my role as a county commissioner is to provide oversight and be aware of what's going on,” Berg said. “We are voting on these things and we need to know our staff and be able to support them.”
Berg filed a motion asking Chan and the Department of Health and Human Services to provide monthly reports to the county commission as a way to make sure the commission is hearing what's going on. . Despite Berg's concerns that the board hasn't heard from HHS, issues related to the department have been on the agenda of county board meetings since Chan became HHS director in July 2023. It has been raised both as a consensus topic and as a matter for general discussion and action. All but two meetings.
Imdike voted in favor of the motion, but the majority of the board (Commissioners Steve Gardner, Dale Anderson and Duane Anderson) voted against it, resulting in a 3-2 defeat.
“I would much rather have them come to me when there is something that needs to be covered,” Dale Anderson said. “I don't want to say you have to come here every month. Other departments don't do that.”
A decision was made in February 2022 to eliminate the bimonthly HHS Commission meetings, which are attended by the entire County Board and are held before the regular board meeting on the first and third Tuesday of each month. This committee was presented to the Board of Directors. It attracted the attention of then-HHS Secretary Lippert and former county governor Kleindl. We thought that treating HHS like any other county department and having it come to the board as needed would be a more efficient use of staff and board time. Work sessions may be held as needed.
It also could give the county commission more time to hear from other departments more frequently. Lippert said in February 2022 that it can be difficult to come up with topics to discuss during committee meetings. Kleindl said departments like community corrections and veterans services were added to HHS meetings to ensure they had time to be heard.
“We won't lose anything. The way we present will change,” Kleindl said at the Feb. 1, 2022, HHS meeting.
Mr. Berg and Mr. Imdieke were approached by Mr. Lippert and Mr. Kleindl about the issue and supported the changes before the issue was brought before the full board in 2022.
“This seemed like the simplest and most logical way to go. We just have one large board meeting,” Berg said at the HHS Committee on Feb. 1, 2022, adding that if no changes are made, then at any time. He added that it could be changed. I'm working out.
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At the January 16, 2024 meeting, Berg said part of the reason the committee was canceled was the impact of the coronavirus pandemic along with the transition to a new administrator and HHS director.
But the decision to cancel committee meetings came a year before Mr. Kleindl resigned and Mr. Lippert resigned, and few work sessions on HHS issues were held during that time or in the future. .
Chan said many of the HHS supervisors on the management team that developed the new committee structure were present when the old committee was in place. Still, they decided to embrace this new idea and not go back to their old ways.
“The reason they still made this recommendation is because they thought this was a good start for the work they wanted to do,” Chan said.
The three commissioners who supported the recommended plan agreed that it was a good starting point. There was also input from staff directly affected by the policy, which the committee members felt was important to support.
“I don't want to tell you what to do,” Dale Anderson said. “If we want to start here, that’s what we should do.”
The first full board work session under this new committee structure is scheduled to be held on February 20th after the regular county board meeting. During that work session, the committee's structure is worked out and the committee's priorities and goals are discussed. From there, monthly committee meetings begin, followed by at least one more work session per year, if not more.
“I like to gradually come back to things like this,” Gardner said. “That's a good first step.”
