Clay County social services staff warn fractured systems and rising caseloads are straining eligibility workers

County social services staff gave an extended department update April 21, saying fractured information systems and rising caseloads are creating significant administrative burden for eligibility workers and increasing risks of backlog and error.

Karen Amundsen and Mikaela Wideric walked the Board through a ‘‘day in the life’’ of an eligibility worker, describing multiple systems that do not communicate (named in the presentation as MAXIS, MMIS and others), frequent logins, time‑consuming manual calculations and case notes that must be defensible months or years later. Amundsen said the combination of frequent interruptions and unintegrated systems drives a workload that can exceed available staff hours on higher volume days.

Wideric provided performance numbers: the adult and family teams processed 7,250 applications, 5,134 renewals and submitted 711 referrals to the fraud and collections unit in 2025. She said the team’s SNAP/payment accuracy error rate was 1.64% — well below both the national (about 6%) and Minnesota (about 9%) averages cited in the presentation. "Our team's error rate is 1.64%... that's exceptional accuracy in a high pressure, high volume environment," Wideric said.

Quinn warned the board that draft federal/state changes discussed as "HR 1" could, under the state's allocation approach, produce sizable fiscal penalties applied at the statewide level; she used a notional example that produced a $1,500,000 figure for Clay County under a hypothetical 10% penalty scenario and urged the board to continue legislative advocacy. Presenters emphasized that referrals do not equal proven fraud and that the county has a recapture and investigation process.

Mikaela also described the health care team’s caseloads: roughly 9,361 cases across three MA areas and an estimate that about 16,000 Clay County residents receive some form of health program (about 23.7% of residents). She noted Clay County has notably higher cases‑per‑worker ratios compared with peer counties (METS cases per worker cited at roughly 1,037 vs. 500s elsewhere), tying the comparison to staffing pressure and sustainability concerns.

County staff said they are preparing for two major workload drivers: changes in review frequency and engagement requirements for an expansion population under HR 1 (additional renewals and periodic data‑matches that flag income changes) and an upcoming Quest project that will migrate private plan data and create extra tasks for county staff when cases intersect with public program eligibility.

What commissioners said: several commissioners praised staff performance and expressed concern about long‑term sustainability and the state’s method of applying penalties. "This is not a right, left, or center issue. This is simply good governance," Commissioner Ebinger said, thanking staff for their work and urging continued advocacy.

Next steps: staff and commissioners said they will pursue legislative engagement and continue local process changes to prioritize time‑sensitive work; fraud investigators and recapture procedures will continue to follow referrals for investigation as needed.