Clay County Collaborative funding: board hears plan to spend carryover and warns of a post‑carryover cliff

Dwayne Borgensen gave an informational presentation on May 12 outlining how the Clay County Collaborative funds school‑based mental health, restorative justice, wraparound services and other supports for youth at risk and their families. Borgensen told the Moorhead Area Public Schools board the collaborative receives Medicaid federal shares generated through a random‑moment time study and that the collaborative’s annual revenue and carryover raise sustainability questions.

Borgensen described the collaborative as a countywide partnership that includes five Clay County school districts, county agencies (public health, social services, juvenile justice), local mental‑health providers and several nonprofits. He said the collaborative receives roughly $340,000 per year from the local collaborative time study, Title IV‑E and partner contributions but is currently spending more: “The collaborative is actually spending just under $500,000,” he said, which creates a carryover the governing board directed administrators to spend down over the next four years.

The administrative recommendation presented to the governing board was to use carryover funds to meet current requests and then allocate the remaining carryover across existing projects (excluding a newly requested CAP LP family support program that received partial funding). Borgensen said the governing board’s budget target for fiscal 2026 was $354,000 but that proposed expenditures total about $491,000 — roughly $136,757 over the target — and that the collaborative intends to spend down approximately $200,000 per year of carryover to avoid forfeiting funds.

Borgensen explained how the funding is generated: staff across schools, county public health and corrections receive random‑moment emails from the state asking them to indicate their activity at a specified time. Only certain codes tied to work with county‑identified at‑risk students are reimbursable; Borgensen said schools do not have visibility on precisely which codes the state will reimburse. “You have to be working directly with a student. The county has a list of students who are at risk, and you have to be working with one of those students…in order for that random moment to generate any funding,” he said.

Programs funded by the collaborative include school‑based mental‑health services (identified as the largest expenditure), a restorative justice juvenile diversion position that works primarily at Horizon, Village wraparound services for families, Churches United advocacy for homeless youth, infant follow‑along services through public health and a family support pilot by REACH. Borgensen said Lakeland Mental Health helps pay deductibles for uninsured or underinsured families and that juvenile diversion work has been busy and valued by schools.

Board members asked about governance and evaluation. Borgensen said the governing board includes county commissioners, school board members and representatives from partner agencies; the administrative group includes about a dozen administrators from districts and partner organizations. He said projects must complete an annual evaluation as a condition of funding and that the governing board meets quarterly.

Borgensen warned that without increased revenue, the collaborative will face hard decisions in about four years when carryover funds are exhausted. He said the county was also pursuing a grant through Clay County Corrections that could expand juvenile diversion programs pending award.