County restores some cuts

Probation, Family Services get jobs

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- Last year's state budget shortfall left many counties scrambling to find ways to deal with less state aid.

One solution was to trim staff and reorganize various departments in order to compensate for the lost aid and lost or reduced state grants.

Brown County made 17 staff cuts in 2003 in the form of layoffs and downgrades and left jobs open in response to those changes.

Now that the state's budget outlook isn't quite so gloomy, some counties, like Brown County, have re-examined the changes they made last year and have restored some of those cuts.

County officials have been conducting a department-by-department review of the cuts, starting with an internal priority review and continuing with the entire county government.

The most recent restorations came to Brown County Family Services and Brown County Probation.

County officials voted to add a social work intake position to Family Services on Tuesday and a restorative justice coordinator to Probation on Feb. 27.

Personnel Director Leah Crabtree said Brown County is not likely to bring back all of the jobs that were cut last year.

Cuts in Family Services and Probation were restored because those departments are required to provide certain services under state law and because new funding was available, Crabtree said. Both departments are currently seeing caseloads that are too high for their employees to manage.

"They did a great job," said Crabtree. "But they can only handle so much work."

A recent Family Services report described the department's caseload as "very high," which is shared by all of the agency's social workers. It also said Brown County has taken in a higher number of new cases that others in the area. By comparison, Blue Earth County had 1,216 intakes and Nicollet County saw 1,000 last year; Brown County had 1,534 in 2003. Family Services representatives urged commissioners to restore some of the cuts in order to give social workers some relief.

Brown County Probation Director Les Schultz said his department has also experienced an above-average workload because of the budget concerns.

"We made drastic cuts, and it's just not working," he said. "We haven't had a lot of staff turnaround recently, but it's more stress that has affected how we do our job, and we have 800 clients to supervise."

Commissioners also accepted a proposal to close an old Family Services social work position called "Family Preservation Case manager" and replace it with a new position, which will be a child protection social worker position.

Family Services staff has also identified a need for a chemical dependency social worker to relieve staff, but it is looking to do that by retraining other staff members, county documents said.

Schultz said he doesn't plan to ask commissioners to restore any more Probation positions, but he hopes to revive the county's intensive juvenile supervision program and expand the hours for Brown County Teen Court and victim-offender mediation, depending upon economics and grant availability.

The intensive juvenile program is his top priority for restoration.