DeKalb County Health & Human Services Committee met May 4.
Here is the minutes provided by the committee:
The Health and Human Services Committee of the DeKalb County Board met virtually via Zoom at 6:37 p.m. Chairman Porterfield called the meeting to order. Those Members virtually present were Mr. Scott Campbell, Ms. Rukisha Crawford, Mrs. Karen Cribben, Ms. Maureen Little, Mr. Larry West, and Chairman Chris Porterfield. Ms. Kiara Jones joined the virtual meeting at 6:44 p.m. At the time of roll call, a quorum was established with all six Members present and one absent.
Others present were Gary Hanson, Deanna Cada, Derek Hiland, and Steve Faivre.
APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA
It was moved by Mr. Campbell, seconded by Ms. Crawford and it was carried unanimously to approve the agenda as presented.
APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES
It was moved by Mr. West, seconded by Mr. Campbell and it was carried unanimously to approve the minutes from the March 2, 2020 Committee Meeting.
PUBLIC COMMENTS
There were no public comments made.
ALLOCATION OF SENIOR SERVES TAX LEVY FUNDS
The purpose of the allocation of the Senior Services Tax Levy Funds is to avoid the premature institutionalization of Senior Citizens. It is the Committee’s job to determine where the tax levy funds should be best allocated in order to provide the best outcome for the entire County.
Due to the current COVID-19 pandemic the Committee was concerned about the agencies being able to provide the normal services that they do. Ms. Cada shared that in spite of the pandemic no agencies wanted to make changes to their applications and they are all delivering the same services to the community and to Senior Citizens just a little bit differently than normal. The only agency that is not currently open is the YMCA, she shared.
Ms. Cada reminded that the Senior Services Tax Levy funds help fund agencies all year long and that many agencies have received funds from the DeKalb County COVID-19 Response Fund (through the DeKalb County Community Foundation) related to food security for Senior Citizens in DeKalb County, totaling $108,750.00. There are also funds that are coming through the Emergency Food and Shelter Program that is managed through the Kishwaukee United Way. The Community Action Agency is getting some substantial amount of funds to help provide direct financial assistance for residents who are in poverty situations. Ms. Cada just wanted the Committee to be aware that there are emergency funds available to local agencies and that the Senior Tax Levy Funds are important to sustain year-long programs for Senior Citizens.
Mr. Campbell highlighted that food security is a major priority right now and noted that VAC’s Meals on Wheels program and DeKalb County Community Gardens are the only source of food for some Senior Citizens and thought funding those agencies should be a major priority for the Committee.
The Committee also discussed what they have in their Levy Reserve Fund. Last year the Committee came to a unanimous consensus that over the next 3-4 years they would implement a Planned Spenddown of their Senior Tax Levy Reserve Fund until their Fund Balance was down to around $10,000. This way the Committee could better fund the applicants in the hopes that more Senior Citizens throughout the County could benefit from the services they provide. Last year the Committee did use an extra $10,000 spenddown. This year the Levy was going to provide the total allocation of $415,000. With that planned spenddown plan in place, the total allocation amount that the Committee had to work with was now $425,000. Requests for the July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2021 grant year came in at $515,307.
The Committee began deliberating on the best way to break up the allocations; by priority or across the board cuts due to there being more requests than funding available. These deliberations lead into a discussion on the utilization of Fund Balance funds and whether some of the Committee Members were comfortable in dipping into those funds further than their planned $10,000 spenddown due to the current state of everything with the pandemic.
Ms. Little provided a base of allocations and the Committee worked through their suggestions and tweaks. They also decided to ultimately add an extra $5,000 (a total of $15,000) from their reserve fund to help fund those agencies that provide meals to Senior Citizens.
After further discussions and numbers being suggested, the Committee agreed on the following allocations for the 2021 Grant Year beginning July 1, 2020 and ending June 30, 2021:
| Agency | 07/01/2020 -
06/30/2021 | 07/01/2020 -
06/30/2021 |
| Request | Recommended | |
| Barb City Manor | $16,200 | $10,000 |
| DeKalb County Community Gardens | $14,440 | $12,000 |
| Elder Care Services | $70,000 | $55,000 |
| Family Service Agency | $60,000 | $50,000 |
| Fox Valley Older Adult Services | $68,884 | $55,000 |
| Hope Haven | $19,645 | $19,000 |
| Kishwaukee Family YMCA | $3,913 | $0 |
| Opportunity House | $25,000 | $25,000 |
| Prairie State Legal Services | $5,000 | $3,000 |
| Voluntary Action Center | $232,225 | $201,000 |
| TOTAL | $515,307 | $430,000 |
COVID-19 UPDATE
DeKalb County COVID-19 Response Fund
DeKalb County Community Mental Health Board Director Deanna Cada shared that she also sits on the DeKalb County Community Foundation’s DeKalb County COVID-19 Response Fund advisory committee. They recently awarded $200,380 to 23 organizations during the first round of DeKalb County COVID-19 Response Grants. The grant program was designed to support the needs of people in the County during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Organizations who received funding during this first round of grant-making include: Adventure Works of DeKalb County Inc., Barb City Manor Retirement Home, Barb Food Mart, CASA DeKalb County Inc., Children’s Home + Aid , Children’s Learning Center Inc., DeKalb Behavioral Health Foundation Inc. DBA Ben Gordon Center, DeKalb County Community Gardens, DeKalb County Health Department, Epilepsy Advocacy Network, Family Service Agency of DeKalb County, Farmworker and Landscaper Advocacy Project, Fox Valley Family YMCA, Fox Valley Older Adult Services, Greater Elgin Family Care Center, Hope Haven, Love In the Name of Christ DeKalb Sycamore, Opportunity House Inc., The Salvation Army, Voluntary Action Center of DeKalb County, We Care Pregnancy Clinic, Westminster Presbyterian Church and Youth Outlook.
Preference for grant requests was given to those that met basic needs, including but not limited to food and basic supplies, shelter, health, utility and financial assistance and support for children and other vulnerable populations. The fund’s purpose is to be a depository for contributions in response to the effects of COVID-19 in DeKalb County. Grants distributed can address preparedness, response, recovery and/or rebuilding efforts as the pandemic evolves.
Funding for this first round of grants was made possible by a grant from the Illinois COVID-19 Response Fund as well as local funding partners, including the DeKalb County Community Foundation, Douglas C. & Lynn M. Roberts Family Foundation, DeKalb County Community Mental Health Board and IDEAL Foundation.
Ms. Cada also shared that Give DeKalb County is on May 7, 2020. This 24-hour giving day supports participating nonprofit organizations and allows donors to give back. During Give DeKalb County there will be an option to Tip the Host and that money will go directly towards local COVID-19 response.
The Community Mental Health Board has also set aside about $100,000 to help with emergency funding for behavioral healthcare right now. They are helping to support their organizations and to capitalize on other funding outside of the community. They are also still seeing a large need for Personal Protection Equipment. The Kishwaukee United Way and the Mental Health Board is working with the Health Department to make sure they can procure PPE needs and get those disseminated to the local social service agencies.
Behavioral Healthcare
The Mental Health Board has been meeting with their funded providers. They have had two virtual meetings with everyone they fund and two with the agencies that are specific to mental health (Adventure Works, Family Service Agency, Ben Gordon Center, Safe Passage, and DeKalb County Youth Service Bureau). The MHB wants to make sure they have what they need to do the work they do for the community. Most of them have moved to some sort of virtual therapy. No one has lost services and most agencies are about 80-90% productivity still. They agencies that do service youth have seen a drop once kids were no longer in school but they are starting to see some of them come back now.
A Virtual Town Hall on Behavioral Health with industry professionals, co-hosted by the DeKalb County Mental Health Board, County Board Chairman Mark Pietrowski, Jr. and Representative Jeff Keicher will be held on Thursday, May 14, 2020 at 7:15 p.m. She also noted that May is Mental Health Awareness Month. They are going to host a panel and talk about adolescent mental health, substance abuse and addition, and general mental health.
The big areas of concern right now are substance abuse disorders and family/domestic violence. Ms. Cada has had recent conversations with Safe Passage and in the beginning they saw a decrease in their crisis calls when COVID-19 first started and now they are seeing the calls ramp back up and they are receiving a big up-tick in calls. The calls are also getting much more violent and serious in nature.
Ms. Cada has also talk to ROE Superintendent Amanda Christensen about schools and the concerns about the students who aren’t in school right now. It will be important to keep connected with them but they also have big concerns about when kids go back to school. It will be quite an adjustment from being off for so long. There is some fear involved both parental fear and the kids’ fear about going back and getting back into a congregate setting. The school districts are really concerned about what that is going to look like and they know some of the students will have experienced trauma while they were home. Ms. Cada and Ms. Christensen are looking ahead and working on how they can make the school transition as seamless as they possibly can.
Lastly, she is continuing to make sure everyone has access to services and that the public is aware of the services out there.
ADJOURNMENT
It was moved by Mr. Campbell, seconded by Mr. West, and it was carried unanimously to adjourn the meeting at 7:35 p.m.
https://dekalbcounty.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/min20-hhsmay.pdf
Alerts Sign-up