AG 2000 01 18 - Laserfiche WebLink

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MEMORANDUM #~lri TO: F~ CliRon, County M~er FROM: Jim Cook, Social Se~ices Direc~ DATE: 1-10-00 SUBJECT: Budget ~endm~nt Request Attached is a budget amendment request I am asking be considered by the Board of Commissioners at its i-18-00 meeting. No additional appropriation of county funding is requested. However, the amendment does provide for the creation of a staff position and revenues are affected. Background The state has placed increasing priority on the finding adoptive homes for children in the custody of departments of social services for whom the courts have established adoption as the plan for the child. Currently, 63 of the 116 children in the care of the Cabarms County DSS are in this situation. Many of these children have special needs and face barriers to adoption. At this time three members of our staff' are involved in working with these children. Our capacity to recruit adoptive homes and to work as intensively as we need to with individual children is limited. We received notice in December that Cabarrus is one of 26 North Carolina counties which have been allocated federal funds by the General Assembly for additional staff and contract services to strengthen adoption services. Attached is the letter of 12-14-99 which announced this allocation. Cabarrus has historically taken proportionally fewer children into foster care than other counties. It has done this by working hard with families having problems to strengthen their abilities to care for their children. Still, Cabarrus met the criteria for the allocation of this funding by being among the 26 counties with the largest number of children in need of adoption services. Funding allocated is $57,000, the annual amount needed to support a social worker position with all overhead costs included. We are using contracted services to support our adoption effort to the extent possible, so that an added staff' position would be most useful. (This is not a grant for which the Department applied. The requirement that the Department secure grant application approval was not applicable in this case). Request We are requesting the Board of Commissioners budget $20,899, the amount required for salary and benefits for six months, for a Social Worker III, and that it authorize the creation of this position effective 1-1-00. We anticipate funds will be available in the coming year to continue this position. If not, the position will be deleted from the budget. The budget amendment request includes offsetting revenues. Thank you; and please let me know of additional information I can provide. Department of Social Services 1303 South Cannon Blvd. Kannapolis, NC 28083 (704)939-1400