Muscatine County OKs shelter contract changes, approves mental-health advocate agreement as region ends

Muscatine County supervisors on Monday authorized the county’s community services director to execute a fiscal year 2025–26 contract with the Muscatine Center for Social Action (MCSA) for shelter services in an amount not to exceed $163,863 and approved a resolution to continue a mental-health advocate arrangement after the regional structure ends June 30.

The board’s action on both items came during a long discussion led by Community Services Director Jessica Bobst about changes to shelter payments and the state’s transition in how mental-health commitments and services are managed.

Bobst told the board the new MCSA contract would simplify payments to the shelter: the county will pay a $15 per-day rate for county residents and eliminate the previous tiered payment system and the county-funded case-management portion. The county will limit paid shelter days to 60 per lifetime for an individual county resident, down from the prior 90-day rolling calendar-year approach, with a director’s exemption for extraordinary events such as mass evacuations. Bobst said domestic-violence shelter stays would remain…