AG 1993 12 20 - Laserfiche WebLink

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John Witherspoon, County Manager December 14, 1993 Page 2 clients at a rate 11% above projected levels. After projected increases in operating expenses of $125,066 for in-home aide salaries and fringe benefits are netted out, additional excess revenues of $188,651 are projected. The attached budget amendment provides for the $125,066 in in-home aide salaries needed to generate these revenues during the remainder of the year. 2. Some 30 Cabarrus County citizens are on the waiting list for CAP services. These are persons who qualify for nursing home care and whose families are in most instances in desperate need of assistance with their care. We are currently unable to serve these people as (practically) all existing in-home aide positions are in use and as existing case manager and in-home aide supervisor positions are overloaded. (The Department's five case managers currently serve an average of 32 clients while CAP regulations specify 25, and our one in-home aide supervisor must supervise all 158 in-home aides.) If we could add needed staff, additional excess revenues of $73,273 could be generated from January - June. For this we would require one case manager Social Worker II (Grade 66) for 5.5 months, and one in-home aide supervisor Social Worker I (Grade 63) for 5.5 months at a cost of $25,757 for salary and benefits. 30 additional part-time (line 102) in-home aides (Grade 48) at a cost of $101,781 in salary and fringe benefits for January - June 1994 would also be required. Total revenues which would be generated by this change are $200,774. Total expenses would be $127,538. The attached budget amendment requests the addition of the staff described above and it adds revenues sufficient to cover all expenses. 3. Our CAP Program has been experiencing an unacceptably high rate of in-home aide turn over. Our analysis of the problem concluded that our wages for in-home aides are not competitive with those of nursing homes and other public and private employers which utilize in-home aides with equivalent qualifications and work responsibilities. Based upon the 84 in-home aide resignations which occurred in the past nine months, a total of $82,397 in billable services is lost annually due to aide turnover. Our in-home aides are classified at Grade 48 and paid an average of $4.95 per hour (for Step 1 or Step 2, depending upon whether or not they have the Certified Nurse Assistant license). A recent survey at the local ESC office reflected similar positions offered locally at an average of $6.73 per hour. A survey of area nursing homes revealed an average hourly wage of $6.06 for aides. Feedback from the DHR Regional Personnel Office suggested our Grade 48 classification is substantially below the classifications assigned in recent studies. It is our conclusion that a 10 percent adjustment in in-home aide salaries effective January 1 (which would average about 50¢ per hour) would be appropriate. This would place CNA in-home aides at $5.59 per hour and non-CNA aides at $5.32 per