HUMAN SERVICES
COMMITTEE
Monday, February 13,
2023 - 10:30 AM
JoePete Wilson, Chairperson
Charlie Harrington, Vice-Chairperson
Chairman Wilson called this Human Services Meeting
to order at 10:30 am with the following Supervisors in attendance: Clayton
Barber, Robin DeLoria, Stephanie DeZalia, Derek Doty, Shaun Gillilland, Charlie
Harrington, Roy Holzer, Steve McNally, Noel Merrihew, Jim Monty, Tom Scozzafava,
Matt Stanley, Ike Tyler, Joe Pete Wilson, Margaret Wood and Mark Wright. Kenneth Hughes and Davina Winemiller were
excused.
Department Heads present: Angie Allen, Linda
Beers, James Dougan, Judy Garrison, Krissy Leerkes, Michael Mascarenas and
Terri Morse.
Also present:
Sylvie Nelson, Executive Director North Country Workforce Development
Board.
News media:
Sun News – Alana Penny
WILSON: Good
morning everyone. We’ll call Human
Services to order. Thank you. We do have a guest today and I would like to
welcome Sylvie Nelson, the Executive Director of the North Country Workforce
Development Board. So, please come on up
and we’re interested to hear from you.
NELSON:
Thank you. So thank you so much
for having me this morning. I am Sylvie
Nelson the Executive Director of the North Country Workforce Development Board
and I also oversee another branch of our operations the North Country Workforce
Partnership which is a 501c3 and that organization allows us to do
complimentary work that is workforce related that the workforce development
board cannot do such as run programs, apply for grants and things like that so
today I’m very proud to be here to talk to you a little bit about what we have
been up to and I think I was here in the fall?
I know it was Covid time because I had my mask but anyway and I remember
I talked to you a little bit about the authentic stem project that we were
doing with CVTech at the Mineville campus regarding the New Vision applied
engineering students. We had four
students participate in the program and in a nutshell, it was partnership, well,
it still is ongoing but it was a partnership with the University of Siegen and
the students worked on the real world problems Schluter systems and I think at
the time, they were in the process of working and developing the solution for
the company and they were working with their counterpart in Germany to come up
to that solution so since then, I’d like to point out that the students did
come up with a solution and the problem really briefly, was that Schluter
systems has drain covers. If you’ve ever
redone a bathroom you might be familiar with the company but they have these
drain covers that came in two parts and then someone was assembling them
together and putting two screws into them and they would package it and they
would sell them. The gentleman was maxed
out at 150,000 assembly of these drain covers per year and the company did not
know really what they wanted to do. Do
they want to hire someone else or do they want to automate it so that was the
problem put forth to the students at the Mineville campus and together, with
their counterparts in Germany they came up with a prototype assembly machine
but their first question was what happens to the gentleman that is doing the
assembly? Is he going to lose his job if
we come up with automation? And they
said no, we are going to upscale him and he is going to operate the machine so
now, I’m very proud to let you know that the students prototype is being built
by Schluter system and those are 17 year old students and one of the students
did not know what he wanted to do, had no direction and now, they were seniors
last spring so now, I believe he applied to Clarkson University and is doing an
engineering degree. Isn’t that
cool? So this is really a great project
and we’re continuing, we just had a kick off on Wednesday. We went with four students in Mineville and
three students in Germany to now a total of 77 students and that’s in one year
and now we went from one company and now we have three companies and the
companies, one of them is Beta Technologies based out of Burlington Vermont but
they do test flights because it is an electric airplane company. Isn’t that cool? They do that in Plattsburgh so they are
working with CVTech. We have TMD
Friction which is a Germany company but if you own a car, they make about 95%
of the brake pads for cars and light commercial vehicles so there’s a good
chance that your car has TMD Friction brake pads and then the other companies,
it’s out of Poughkeepsie, it’s a – oh my gosh I’m having a blank, it’s a senior
moment. I’m sorry but it’s a company out
of Poughkeepsie where we are testing our program outside the immediate region
and we’re hoping to bring it to other regions as well in the State of New York
so that’s what’s going on with authentic step.
We also have our own middle school participating, 8th graders
and we have FEH BOCES, two students from the Malone campus and two students
from the Saranac Lake campus and I don’t know exactly which ones come from the
Lake Placid School District verses maybe Saranac Lake or Tupper Lake but
definitely with CVTech FEH BOCES in Malone middle school it’s a great project
for our North Country students and we’re very proud of that and we’re hoping to
continue expanding it and we did receive a grant from the Northern Borders
regional council for $335,000 to bring it to the next level so we’re so
excited. So, that’s that for that.
And the other thing too, I just wanted to make
sure you know we are always working very closely with our counties and from the
Workforce Development Board side I oversee workforce development in Clinton,
Essex, Franklin and Hamilton counties and this year we have a new board of
Legislator Chair in Franklin County and because of that I sent your Clerk of
the Board I believe is her title, Judy Garrison? Oh, is that you? So nice to meet you. So, it is a Chief Elected Official agreement
and whenever you are ready to sign it Mr. Gillilland, feel free to do that and
then we’re asking all of our counties to do that because every time you have a
changeover in one of the counties unfortunately we have to redo the paperwork for
the State of New York so that’s in the process.
The other thing I wanted to just kind of put on
your radar because this is going to be a big change. We are in the process of, we issued a request
for proposal, Clinton County who has been our partner for the workforce
innovation and opportunity act for I don’t know how many years, at least
thirty, thirty-five years they had advised us they no longer want to continue
being the contract holder for adult dislocated worker and out of school youth
for the funding, for the services that we provide to our clients in Clinton
County. It’s not going to change
anything for you because Clinton County is our fiscal agent and they have
agreed to remain our fiscal agent so we’re in the process of hopefully finding
another entity that will take the adult dislocated worker and youth out of
school coalition which Essex County is part of, they actually have an MOU
between Franklin County, Essex County and then Clinton County being the lead so
hopefully that’s not going to change much, it could but we are going to make
sure that whoever comes into that position is well trained and has plenty of
time to also kind of ease into it with Clinton County guidance. So, that’s hopefully going to be, July 1st
is the date our year starts, our fiscal year so that would be starting on July
1, 2023. So, aside from that I don’t
think I have anything else unless you have questions of course.
WILSON:
Any questions? Well, thank you
very much and it’s great to hear of all the progress you’re making with the
programs you’re doing and the county’s working on recruitment and retention and
maybe we can find ways to partner up to holster our workforce here at the
county.
NELSON:
Yes, I’m having a meeting with your Assistant Manager Jim after this
meeting so that we can kind of look at the different strategies and how our
office can also assist you because you’re not the only one unfortunately
everybody, it’s the workforce development, everyone is looking for qualified
employees so hopefully we can come up with some kind of ideas and ways for you
to pursue that.
WILSON:
Well, I’m glad you’re connected with Jim and thank you for jumping right
in.
NELSON: Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure, as always. Thank you.
WILSON:
Alright, and now the Department of Social Services, Angie Allen.
ALLEN:
Good morning. Just a few
announcements before I open up for any questions. I just wanted to inform you of the official
appointment of Dan Sadowski as Deputy Commissioner. I was asked last time and I did let you know
that I was planning on taking the two and combining them into one so Dan
Sadowski who was actually the Deputy of Mr. Mascarenas was officially appointed
on Friday. He is an asset and will keep
me straight and really help out with my learning curve in the financial realm
so he is definitely an asset.
Another announcement was actually a transition
from Bonnie Long-Stay who was the previous Confidential Secretary to Zoe
Sherman, someone from Westport. I just
wanted you guys to be aware so when you do contact the office you’ll be
speaking to Zoe Sherman. She is
delightful. She is knowledgeable. She is a go getter and definitely and asset
to our team. We have some exciting ideas on to really boost the resilience in
the workforce and bring back some of the old school ways so I think that’s
pretty cool to announce.
One more thing, which is actually huge. Mike, I hadn’t gotten a chance to tell you
this one but Stop DV through BHSN was given approval to put a safe house for DV
victims back in Essex County. A few
years ago we lost the home that we had here so we’ve been having to move
families either to Franklin County or Clinton County which in our realm it’s
just such a huge obstacle because of children and schools, transportation,
custody across county lines, so a lot, a lot of obstacles but they were able to
get approval to the pursuing a home inside Essex County so that’s pretty huge
in our realm so it’s definitely a move in the positive direction.
You guys have my report. Any questions you may
have?
MONTY:
Is that home going to be a new built home because I was with Loral Letty
on Friday and she mentioned that to me about this home but she didn’t, we were
at the United Way so we weren’t really discussing it. I’m supposed to call here this afternoon and
stuff, so are they trying to locate a home that is in the county or are they
going to build a home?
ALLEN:
They are looking to look at a home within the county itself. Right now we are talking about funds and
supporting her and trying to find some infrastructure and capital funds.
MONTY:
How much is the grant for?
ALLEN: She was not able to tell you at that
point. There was a couple other things that she wanted to line up. She was just
really excited to tell me it’s coming so she and I will be talking later this
week.
MONTY: I
think it would be important to have it centrally located.
ALLEN:
Yes. We’re definitely looking at, there’s a couple hubs in the county
and taking a look at one where there is more need but it’s also the
confidentiality right? So, sometimes when you do put something in a hub people
find out a little bit in terms of a safe house but yeah, so again, I will keep
you posted but that’s really awesome, great news for the families in Essex
County.
MONTY: Thank you.
DOTY:
Just a quick question regarding domestic violence, in a home situation
like that how does your agency oversee security for that or is the Sheriff’s
Department involved? I mean, certainly
it is a volatile situation.
ALLEN:
Absolutely. So the home itself is
overseen by BHSN and there’s not a secure measure. The whole concept of
security is kept in the confidentiality so unknown locations. Each of the counties,
Franklin, Essex and Clinton operate on what’s called a waiver which means under
financial eligibility also within children’s family court can be the ability to
protect the address by law we cannot give out the address to a safe house to
anyone whether they are seeking financial assistance or support in the county
system. So, there’s really no security
other than that. They are housed with staff through the BHSN. What we financial
do is just financially support it in terms of children services, the adult
services. We do help with
transportation. We do help with the schooling and providing the supplies to the
families when necessary if there is a need for doctor’s appointments or let’s
say, a medication we are kind of that go between on a voluntary basis.
DOTY:
Thank you.
McNALLY:
Just so you’re aware, Mountain Lakes Services has closed or vacated a
lot of their properties in the southern part of the county, one in Schroon
Lake, one in Minerva and they are an ideal facility because they meet the
requirements of access for multi-family use.
ALLEN:
That’s a great idea, thank you.
I’ll make sure I share that with Loral.
McNALLY: I know they had one they put on the
market last week, it’s a four bedroom they are ideal facilities and they are
very well kept.
ALLEN:
Yes. Great idea, thank you.
STANLEY:
I see there’s another lifeguard training scheduled for Moriah Central
School. Is there any thought to have one
in the northern part of the county?
ALLEN:
So, there was actually two trainings offered. I think there was a flyer for one. I believe we spoken about that. I know that Dan’s aware of the need what’s
interesting of the two, when usually I think we have an eight slot open, I
think we had actually opened up for nine and they were filled probably before
the posting came out.
MASCARENAS: I think too and I’ve done this for
twenty some years, the issue is really we’re withholding to the actual person
providing the training so finding those individuals who are certified to be
able to conduct those lifeguard trainings, working it into their schedules is
the difficult part. We never were
against holding a training up in Ausable. There is only two pools in the whole
county, one is in Moriah and one is in Ausable. Ausable, we always felt that it
might pull in more Clinton County people where we are trying to put people at
your beach but we’re not against doing it if you know of a provider somebody
that can do the training I think we absolutely would look at doing that for
you.
STANLEY:
I just think it’s been an issue for Wilmington and Chesterfield to try
and get lifeguards.
MASCARENAS:
Yeah, everybody so if you guys have people or have providers again,
anybody that is certified let us know because again, this training is really
set up, we pay for it, we sponsor it but it’s really about the individual who
is holding the training and their availability so that’s why it’s limited.
ALLEN:
It’s my understanding that the towns will get a list of those, I believe
that’s what Mr. Sadowski explained to me.
Each of you will get a list of those that have been certified so their
pool will be shared.
DELORIA:
We have certified lifeguard trainings in Newcomb and I’ll just simply
put them in contact with you.
MASCARENAS:
And Linette Chase has worked with us in the past.
McNALLY:
We run programs in the south in May and June in Minerva too. This is my personal feeling, I think the
lifeguarding classes should not be taught in a pool unless you’re going to swim
in a pool and I’ll tell you why it’s not a controlled environmental. We’ve had people not pass the course because
of fish and weeds and are you going to teach them to lifeguard in a pool and
send them down where there is fish it’s something to think about. We’ve had
people flunk out of the class because of fish in the water.
SCOZZAFAVA:
Reading through your report, child support $2.9 million, year to date is
that calendar year?
ALLEN:
Yes, actually. So there is a
monthly that we get and a year to date as well.
SCOZZAFAVA:
Wow.
MASCARENAS: It is basically over a twenty-two
month period in DSS the way it works so you have, the State has the ability to
close claims over a twenty-two month period and then they fall off provided you
don’t have the information but they were way behind. It’s not unusual. We were over $4 million
during Covid that’s when we asked the board to take action and do a resolution
it’s not unusual to be about $2 million, that’s a little high, it’s like your
DOS grants or anything else you do, right?
You spend the money and you wait for payment that’s kind of how it
works.
SCOZZAFAVA:
I thought it was a fiscal year.
So, this is not just January that I’m looking at?
MASCARENAS:
There’s two. I think there’s two
fiscal years in that report usually.
SCOZZAFAVA:
Year to date collected $2,988,667.
MASCARENAS:
Yes. So you see claims registers
from 2021, claims registers from 2022 so those are for two separate years
totaling that amount right on the front.
SCOZZAFAVA:
And secondly, I want to thank Ms. Allen, our Commissioner for we had a
situation in Moriah last week and your promptness, right on top of that in a
hurry and I really appreciate it. Thank you.
ALLEN: Thank
you. Definitely when you guys have a
concern, give us a call that’s what we’re here for right? If we are not able to get to it quickly then
it usually causes bigger problems and more financial expenses for you guys so
whenever you have a concern. I will be
probably bringing up next month, there’s been some reform to the child abuse
hotline system, not a lot to bog you down with some information but just to
open up a communication and offer trainings to any entity you may have in your
town you may feel would benefit from learning some of the changes. It’s a friendly approach, I think everyone is
recognizing that you don’t always need a child protective report to support a
family but you can do them through a friendly more transparent resiliency
handoff with services you usually get further down the line so that will be
coming as well.
HOLZER:
Backing up to lifeguard training, do we offer like a stipend to the like
if we were to find our own instructors for the Ausable region, do we offer any
kind of extra salary to the instructors or are they only making the
registration fee for compensation?
MASCARENAS:
You can see our lifeguard fee is $125 which is incredibly low. The
reason for that is we are paying that instructor directly so the $125 fee that
you’re seeing there is really for the ancillary items. It’s for use of facility. It’s for the books, whatever they are going
to need, the mask for CPR, those types of things so most lifeguards when they
are put on by an individual is way higher than what ours is so we’re not
against hiring those people directly paying them an hourly rate, taking care of
setting all of those up, doing that leg work for them and just having them show
up and do the course.
HOLZER: Okay, thank you.
MONTY: I
know, we don’t have lifeguards in Lewis but we have the summer program. We pay
our counselors Roy to go get the training they need. We give them a stipend for
going so I would think if your municipality could pay them a stipend for taking
that course.
HOLZER: Which we do.
MASCARENAS:
We are not against like I said subsidizing that, we have for years it’s
just getting those instructors in those outlining areas to be able to hold the
course and do the work.
WILSON:
Anything else for social services?
Alright, thank you very much.
ALLEN:
Thank you.
WILSON:
Mental Health – Terri Morse
MORSE: Good
morning. I couldn’t agree more with Mr.
McNally, as a swimmer in high school in the pool, when I was invited to do open
water swimming with a friend of mine I had panic attacks the first two or three
times I had to do that so, yes, I completely agree with you that swimming in a
pool is very different, lifeguarding in a pool is very different.
My report is kind of showing that our crisis
numbers are going down. I can tell you
that I think some of what I call warm calls are being diverted to the 988
environment but that the significance and the severity of our crisis calls are
actually increasing over the last probably six months to a year. That is absolutely why I included information
about the mobile crisis services that we have available; Mental Health
Association in particular has available mobile crisis 24/7. If you are ever going to use these for
somebody in your community I would think about the safety factor before calling
MHA because maybe law enforcement would be a safer option than peers who are
lived experiences who are responding to crisis in the community so you can call
their 1-800 number or on their website they actually have a little link to fill
out a mobile crisis form. Essex County
Mental Health also has mobile crisis and I’m glad to say MHA is the primary
organization for that. We do collaborative outreach with MHA and Essex County
Mental Health for example, if MHA feels like there is a need for clinical
assessment then we dispatch together and then St. Joseph’s Treatment and
Recovery Center also has a mobile crisis available too and I have included
their phone number and then 988 will continue to come on board.
I just have a few resolutions that we’ll
do. So, I have a resolution from the
Community Services Board to update and renew some terms so Angie Allen and
Laurie Kelley as a board member, John Haverlick as Mental Health subcommittee,
Brandon Titus for Alcohol Substance Abuse subcommittee and Laurie Kelley and
Vicki Fergus for the Intellectual Development Disability Subcommittee their
terms will be effective January 1, 2023 to December 31, 2026.
RESOLUTION
AUTHORIZING THE APPOINTMENT OF MEMBERS TO THE ESSEX COUNTY SERVICES BOARD OR
SUBCOMMITTEE FOR A TERM EFFECTIVE JANUARY 1, 2023 TO DECEMBER 31, 2026. Scozzafava, Wright
WILSON: Questions, concerns? All in favor, aye, any opposed - motion
carries. Thank you.
MORSE:
One of the organizations that we contract with for psychiatric services
is an organization called Innovatel.
They are owned by FlightSuit.
They had asked or informed me that they are having to pay their
prescribers 8% higher this year than they were but they are passing on a 5%
increase for us so where we pay $139.00 an hour now, that will be raised to
$145.95 per hour.
RESOLUTION
AUTHORIZING A RATE INCREASE OF INNOVATEL/FLIGHTSUITS CONTRACTED PRESCRIBING
STAFF FROM $139.00 PER HOUR TO $145.95 PER HOUR WITH FUNDS TO COME FROM
BUDGETED FUNDS. Doty, Stanley
WILSON:
Questions, concerns? All in
favor, aye, any opposed - motion carries.
Thank you.
MORSE: And last but not least, the second week
of February is known as the School Counseling Appreciation Week and I have to
say that my work with schools over the last year and a half during Covid has
revealed that there is a lot of difficulty in schooling children at this time
and when I think about the jobs that school counselors do in Essex County Schools
I am just amazed and honored to be working with them because they wear a lot of
hats in the school and I wanted to honor them with a resolution today and have
your support for doing so.
WILSON: I will move that and ask for a
unanimous second.
RESOLUTION
DESIGNATING FEBRUARY 6 – 10, 2023, AS SCHOOL COUNSELING APPRECIATION WEEK IN
ESSEX COUNTY. Wilson, unanimous
WILSON: And that motion carries, thank you. Anything else Terri?
MORSE: I
was just going to add one more thing about that that I forgot so in May the
BRIEF coalition is hosting our second school counselor’s summit and we will be
giving out this resolution also at that time.
WILSON: Thank you. Any further questions? Alright, thank you very much. Public Health – Linda Beers.
BEERS: Good morning everybody. How are you?
Thank you for having us. My
report is in front of you. I’m just
going to highlight some wonderful information about that. One of the first things I wrote in this
report just because it came out and I want to be fair and unbiased as I report
and one of the highlights or one of the most recent things that came out of the
cannabis counsel of New York State Office of Cannabis Management was this new
study that showed that cannabis was good for managing chronic pain and meant
less opioids for people.
I also wanted to tell you at NYSAC, I will be
at the NYSAC Conference. I am actually the Chair for Mental Health and Public
Health at the State level and we are calling on the Governor just so you know
we passed resolutions there. I wanted
you to be aware that at that through Public Health and Mental Health and the
statewide coalition we are going to ask move a resolution forward, it’s
attached here, for the Governor to recognize a State of Emergency regarding
overdoses and the rate of them. I wasn’t
sure if I was asking you to also pass that but I wanted to bring it to your
attention as I didn’t want to move something that you might not be aware of but
I thought I’d share this, in 2022, report release by New York State Comptroller
showed that in 2020, opioid overdoses increased 38% nationally, 44% in New York
and provisional data indicated that in 2021, overdoses increased by 17%
nationally so between 2/19 and 2021 opioid overdose deaths increased by 68%. We
are seeing trends in Essex County with increased opioid deaths. I will have
some data for you next month it’s only February so I don’t want to report on a
month but one of the nice things or not nice things but one of the great things
about the ECHO coalition and really, putting all those ducks in a row is that
opioid tracking mechanism on OD mapping and honestly it works amazingly
now. I mean we have everybody on board
and what it does is it provides Terri’s group and NEMERS for those opioid
reversals to make a connection with those people. We are also working with Dave Reynold’s group
through a grant and EMS project called Leave Behind so whenever anybody goes
out they do an opioid reversal they will be leaving naloxone behind so that’s
exciting. So, I just wanted to call that
to your attention.
WILSON:
Linda, would it be helpful for this board to pass the resolution?
BEERS:
Yes. I would love you to do that.
RESOLUTION
URGING GOVERNOR HOCHUL TO DECLARE A STATE OF EMERGENCY REGARDING THE OVERDOSE
EPIDEMIC IN NEW YORK STATE TO REMOVE STATUTORY BARRIERS TO LOCAL DATA SHARING
NECESSARY FOR TIMELY INTERVENTIONS.
Wood, Doty
WILSON:
Any questions? All in favor, aye
and that motion carries.
BEERS: Thank you. We do try to do that so when the Governor
gets it many of the counties can say, we have that approved by our board
too. Thank you.
The Governor’s budget really called out lead
poisoning primary prevention proposal, tobacco enforcement around flavored
vapes and a reform of Article 36.
I will tell you proudly that today is no mask
Monday. You have not been wearing a mask
but I and Terri have been wearing masks nonstop until today, today is the first
day since two years we’ve come to work and don’t wear a mask. My staff have been masked every single day
since this happened and today is the first day; we still leave our office
waiting to like, do we put it on? I did
find several of my staff wearing them they didn’t believe so that is exciting
in the world of Covid moving forward.
Onto the next thing which is waste water
surveillance so anybody who has, we will be working on this initiative as we
move forward into the next year, this year encouraging water treatment plants
to sign up for waste water testing and so the waste water testing was really
about Covid levels Syracuse does it and they use waste water product and they
can tell levels of disease in it but unbeknownst to me, there was a PILOT done
in Essex County specifically with Lake Placid was in it and they did a PILOT,
there were five or six counties in it, we happened to be one of them and they
looked for specific drugs in the wastewater.
I have a list of them, I was really quite surprised how detailed they
can get it so there were five counties across New York State and the one that
was included was the Lake Placid treatment and so results indicated low
variability of detected drugs over the six weeks of measurement and they did
expect to use patterns including cannabis use was higher than other drugs
used. It is legal in New York State so
we would expect that so anyway, more to come on that as we move forward again,
it was a PILOT that was done last year but you can see that there could be
great value in understanding population health with this type of approach but
also with that, comes great responsibility because who is really being tested
in the waste water for a specific place.
I would argue probably in Lake Placid that is the businesses and the
people that visit there a lot more than maybe the citizens of your wastewater
treatment plant so you just have to be very careful in looking at that data.
On that, in Lake Placid, I will bring you to
the communicable disease prevention program.
Probably nobody knew but we knew, during the FISU games there was a
concern of a flu borne illness. If you
with our Sheriff’s Department and whatnot, people had concerns that they were
food poisoned. I was at there and I
spent a great deal of time run around and handing out stool samples, that’s
what I did and so I was chasing people down. Anyway, at the end of the day we
did get some stool samples back and it was not a flu borne illness. It was Norovirus which is a very, very
communicable stomach bug. Many of these
people had driven there and transported together on buses and during that time
we feel they probably exchanged that virus but when they got to Lake Placid
they all seemed to get sick within a very quick time of all one another and it
appeared to be something different but none of that was found so we were glad
we were able to do that but it took a lot of work.
Flu & respiratory illnesses going
down. I call your attention to tick
borne illnesses and tick bite bot, it’s really interesting. It’s a new tool online and it will really walk
you through removal of a tick and help you do that. Also talking about this
inclement weather, every time it goes below freezing ticks come back out, they
are really unbelievably amazing vectors and so just because it’s winter don’t
think you can’t get a tick with this melting and this warmer temperatures they
will very well produce again.
I want to call your attention and thank any of
you and all of your DCO, Dog Control Officers, your Animal Control Officers;
we’ve had, it’s really a large group of animal bites. Essex County received 13
bites in January, just so you know, over the weekend we had three. So, my staff over the weekend spent a great
deal of time on dog bites, we had three dog bites in just one weekend alone and
there’s a little story about Ticonderoga and the fox story. We always have one of those. If you get a new Animal Control Officer, if
there is any changes please alert our office.
We’ve been really working a lot on Facebook and
getting the information out, one of those is chronic disease. We put a poll out, of the seventeen responses
of community members nobody got it right but did you know the most common
chronic disease in Essex County? It is
cancer. So, that’s what it is. And then I call your attention to our
Facebook post. There’s a really nice article about, I don’t know if it gets
enough, but Belfry Mountain Tower. I
think Lucianna Celotti took this picture so, just to give you an idea, first
reminder of our residents in Essex County, we have snow shoes that we got a
grant in 2022, you approved it. I’m
sure, who remembers that long back but it was snow shoes and Blue Cross/Blue
Shield Excellus gave us that money. Just
to give you an idea, that post reached 4,852 people and was shared 41
times. We have had such, people are
waiting in line for these snowshoes. If
you look they weren’t really expensive.
We would support any of that if there is any mini grants or whatever that
you know of to buy more of those and then the rest moves on and talks about
communications. I can’t thank you
enough, we’re using a grant person right now, and we hired a communications
specialist. The data speaks for itself,
look at the increased amount of people and the amount of publications and
public health is really about public information and getting people to
understand chronic disease and how they can do things to change it. We also have a new emergency preparedness
person and I just wanted to call, especially in light of the most recent
emergencies in our county with low temperatures and power outages we are
working with Matt Watts department and the Red Cross and the Red Cross is going
through lots of structural changes in Essex County, actually out of
Plattsburgh. We are meeting with them I think this week or next and we’re going
to talk about, there’s two kinds of shelters, probably more but we call one a
warming hut, warming shelter and one where you’re going to set up cots and give
people meals and all of that, that’s a completely different thing and those are
Red Cross shelters as a rule if you ever open one and you’re not a Red Cross
Shelter you need to be very careful because that liability and whatnot isn’t
covered. You also have, if you’re
bringing in and serving food whatnot Department of Health and into those codes
and if you’re housing people, that’s a whole other regulation so I caution
anybody doing anything like that unless you really, and I encourage you to do
it but I think you need to work through the Red Cross, understand what all
those requirements are and then go through and do it correctly and become a Red
Cross Shelter. We are going to work with
the Red Cross to find out where they are.
SCOZZAFAVA:
Most of us, I think all of us have emergency plans that were adopted a
while back and hopefully all those shelters that we designated are Red Cross
Shelters?
BEERS: So, I did get a list of them. I think there’s lots of new supervisors here.
SCOZZAFAVA:
Matt should have it.
BEERS:
He does but they didn’t work, how about that? So new supervisors or people that had those
plans from previous supervisors they didn’t all go into effect correctly, how about
that? I mean people weren’t showing
where the warming shelters were in their town or who signed up to do them or
whose names were on the list. I just got that list and we are sharing it out.
Does that make sense? You’ve been here a
long time Tom.
SCOZZAFAVA:
Well, to be honest, it does make sense because we all thought that these
were our shelters now we are hearing that they may not be so we do need to get
that –
BEERS:
No, no that’s a warming shelter you didn’t sign up for a Red Cross
shelter.
SCOZZAFAVA:
They were always, we had Moriah Fire House, we had Moriah Central, they
were always to my knowledge certified Red Cross Shelters where they could serve
food, bring cots in and so on.
BEERS:
Yeah, I’ll tighten that up and get you more information. Again, we’ve called and meeting with them
this week. There’s a whole distinction
about warming shelters and getting people temporary and getting people coffee
and bathrooms and maybe even a shower so I’ll just give you the reasoning
why. So, during Irene many schools
opened places but when their houses were gone the people didn’t leave, they
couldn’t go to school, they couldn’t open up their town halls because they were
filled with people. If there is a reason
people can’t return home you can’t get those folks out of your shelter and they
stay for months while they are waiting or weeks and weeks so there’s a
reasoning and you have to have long term planning once you let people in if
they’ve lost their homes you have to have a secondary plan on how you
transition them. We’ve seen in this
county with even fires it has taken us a long time to get people another
housing around here so, that’s one of the reasons I caution and that we work
with the Red Cross that’s a real shelter but I know, the ones I’ve got is a
list of every one of you, they were warming stations more a shelter where you
brought people in but not cots and food and bedding that’s what I saw but I’m
going to tighten it up. I’ll have more
next month.
SCOZZAFAVA:
Thank you.
BEERS: Children Services – oh my gosh. I can’t even begin to tell you, it’s getting
only worse right? There’s 31 children
active in Early Intervention, fourteen children are on a waiting list. Preschool program has 90 enrolled, 31
children waiting for a referral and on Friday of last week, Mountain Lake
Services called and let us know their school psychologist, their only
evaluation team resigned. It is a
crisis. So, we had talked about it
awhile back and I just bring up. We’ll
talk more about it next month. You
graciously gave me a speech pathologist which I’ve been unable to fill. We’ve
been putting it on and there has been some thought that perhaps we could use
this money and dedicate and redirect the funds to support Mountain Lake
Services with this money and bolster up with pay increases or something to help
them survive this because people are leaving for better paying jobs and other
reasons.
WILSON:
Could I ask you if there is anything essential, critical crisis hit that
but otherwise we could wrap up? Thank
you.
BEERS:
Sure. So, the Home Health I call
to you that’s based off 3,500 people and on the back is that, this would be the
end anyway, is the home care plan report.
It’s for your information and I encourage you to read the chronic
research report from Home Care, Jenn Newberry has spent a great deal of time
and it’s really interesting if you want to see where our money is going. That’s it.
WILSON:
Any further questions for Linda.
GILLILLAND:
Going back to the overdoses, have you got trained, the animal
tranquilizer mixed with fentanyl; do we have any cases in Essex County on that?
BEERS:
No, not to my knowledge. Not from
that so we are and that’s another grant we just got rescue breathing bags I
think that’s what they are called so, that tranquilizer requires you to give
mouth to mouth they won’t Narcan won’t save them because it’s the tranquilizer
drug is what’s killing them so they stop breathing so Narcan, not that we won’t
continue to do Narcan because you wouldn’t know but you have to give mouth to
mouth with it and through another grant through Hudson Mohawk AHEC they
purchased them. I have 30 on my desk
right now waiting for more and all of our area agencies including our Sheriff’s
Department have asked for them so, in order to give mouth to mouth we use the
bag and you put it on and you squeeze the bag but we have not but it was seen
in Saratoga County and we made two post alerts and it was spread widely that
there was concerns all around the area.
GILLILLAND:
I read an article yesterday and it’s growing so fast –
BEERS: Agreed and that tranquilizer drug is
not. They said there was a reversal but
my understanding, it’s a veterinarian drug, there is but it is an injection so
it’s not something that’s going to get easily corrected anytime soon. Thank
you. There’s also fentanyl strips that you can test drugs to see if there’s fentanyl
in them, perhaps the next thing. Thanks.
WILSON:
Thank you. Alright, Office for the Aging, Krissy Leerkes.
LEERKES:
Good morning. I passed out to you
this morning the green folder that has all the documents that I will very
briefly touch on but in my report you received last week one of the really
innovative creative ideas was we did a Be My Valentine project that definitely
hit a lot of areas, it hit down in Albany where folks sent in Valentines for
our older adults and they are being distributed today and tomorrow to all of
our home delivered meal folks, to some of our sites, to our case management
folks just to brighten someone’s day and again, a very small lift for us.
You have my newsletter in there. I did give you a copy of a community survey,
I believe that I did send that to you Mr. Mascarenas, to share out I
believe. It’s a random community survey
that your State Office for the Aging is doing so individuals will be randomly
selected. It will go out in a post card
form, they can fill it out through a little URL or they can get a paper
copy. It’s just so that if any of your
constituents come to you and say, why am I getting this? What is it for? You have a little background,
it’s nothing you have to send out.
You also have our care give assistance
newsletter. The next document is a
hospital and home care collaborative with aging providers. It shows some collaborations across the State
and we were fortunate enough to be included in that document with our
collaboration of Elizabethtown Community Hospital as well as our CHHA so that’s
really great to see that we’re highlighted at the State wide level and actually
attached to the green binder is our Advocacy binder document that the Association
utilizes with all of our local elected officials whether it’s county based,
state wide based. In there it talks
about our network and our services. What’s really great though is that it
breaks it down to our North Country region and also highlights Essex County so
it’s not just statewide it’s really hitting the local level.
Last thing before I go into resolutions is
every March we do NYSOFA, New York State Office for the Aging brings forth a
March for Meal campaign so I’m opening up the invite to anybody that would like
to help deliver home delivered meals. I
know that many of you are very familiar with that program whether you support
it with local staff or volunteers or maybe it’s located in one of your community
buildings but if you would like to see maybe a neighboring community or just go
out and deliver the meals just let me know and I can arrange that for you. I know Mr. Monty and Mr. Tyler have worked in
the kitchen before. Mr. Gillilland I’m pretty sure he’s delivered before so if
you want to look at that definitely let me know.
I do have a couple of resolutions that came to
Judy late on Friday. I apologize. Last week got a little crazy at the end but
the first one is to accept $10,481.50 of reimbursement from our contract with
Adirondack Community Action Program that actually came out of the Unmet needs
funds that we were awarded late last year that ended in December. Since we are over our county match
requirement it will show that without those county funds we would go with a
waiting list so we were able to use those funds that we didn’t otherwise have
the ability to spend them so we’re offsetting that contract.
RESOLUTION
AUTHORIZING A BUDGET AMENDMENT IN THE OFFICE FOR THE AGING DEPARTMENT
INCREASING REVENUES AND APPROPRIATIONS IN THE AMOUNT OF $10,481.50, ADIRONDACK
COMMUNITY ACTION PROGRAM. Scozzafava,
Stanley
WILSON:
Any questions? All in favor aye,
any opposed – motion carries. Thank you.
LEERKES:
We created a cooperative agreement with Linda, with the Essex County
Health Department and the CHHA team to provide Covid 19 vaccines to the
homebound population in the amount of $6,050.00. This agreement would go back into effect from
April 1, 2021 to September 30 of this year.
We work really closely with Linda’s CHHA to create a list of individuals
who weren’t able to get out to a vaccine site and as her nurses had the
availability they were giving those vaccines and still are so we would just
like to help offset those costs.
RESOLUTION
AUTHORIZING THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN OR COUNTY MANAGER TO EXECUTE A COOPERATIVE
AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE ESSEX COUNTY OFFICE FOR THE AGING DEPARTMENT AND THE
ESSEX COUNTY HEALTH DEPARTMENT FOR A TERM BEGINNING APRIL 1, 2021 TO SEPTEMBER
30, 2023, TO PROVIDE COVID 19 VACCINES TO THE HOMEBOUND POPULATION IN THE
AMOUNT OF $6,050.00. Wright, Stanley
WILSON:
Any questions? All in favor aye,
any opposed – motion carries. Thank you.
LEERKES:
And the last is to enter into a shared services agreement with the North
Country Healthy Heart Network. Two of my
staff are trained leaders in the chronic disease self-management program and
they have received some funding to kind of give incentives to agencies that
have these leaders to give out those programs so from February 1 to May 31, any
workshops that we deliver, it’s a six week series we would be reimbursed at the
level of I believe $1800.00, just a compensation and we’re hoping to get two in
so allowing us to accept the money.
RESOLUTION
AUTHORIZING THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN OR COUNTY MANAGER TO EXECUTE A SHARED SERVICES
AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE ESSEX COUNTY OFFICE FOR THE AGING DEPARTMENT AND NORTH
COUNTRY HEALTHY HEART NETWORK FOR A TERM BEGINNING FEBRUARY 1, 2023 TO MAY 31,
2023, FOR THE DELIVERY OF THE CHRONIC DISEASE SELF MANAGEMENT PROGRAM AND
FURTHER AUTHORIZING A BUDGET AMENDMENT INCREASING REVENUES AND APPROPRIATIONS
IN THE AMOUNT OF $1800.00, FOR THE SAME. Stanley, Doty
WILSON:
Any questions? All in favor aye,
any opposed – motion carries. Thank you.
LEERKES:
And there is one more last, quick thing I know we’re past our schedule,
I just touched on the unmet need funding and we were able to offset that cost
right now with the unmet need money that we have available through March 31, we
put it into contract with the North Country Home Services for personal care
level 1&2 so it’s help in the home, personal care, bathing, light house
keeping with those funds we were able to turn on service. I want to say immediately it’s not really,
it’s definitely within a couple of days, where in the past those individuals
would have been going on a waiting list, they would have been hitting the ER,
they would have had unnecessary hospital stays so those funds have been
crucial, crucial the unfortunate part is and I don’t want to speak to Linda’s
CHHA team but I can say yes, we can authorize five hours a day for five days a
week to help with caregiver respite or to keep this person in the home, out of
the nursing home, out of the hospital
unfortunately we don’t have an aid from North Country to cover that,
that money is kind of I don’t want to say useless because we’ll find other ways
for it but with all the good, unfortunately comes the bad so I just want to say
thank you guys for allowing us to accept that unmet need money, it doesn’t cost
the county anything if anything it saves it and if anybody has any questions?
WILSON:
Anything? Alright, thank you very
much. Anybody have anything else for
Human Services? Alright then we’re
adjourned.
As
there was no further discussion to come before this Human Services Committee it
was adjourned at 11:25 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Judith Garrison, Clerk
Board of Supervisors