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Marquette County panel agrees to pursue state-funded FoodShare quality‑assurance positions for regional consortium
Summary
Human Services staff told the board that a new state requirement will fund QA positions to review a large share of FoodShare cases across a multi‑county consortium; the board agreed in principle to develop a job description and return with details. Key concerns: backfilling casework, training time and required county‑level approval.
Marquette County’s Human Services Board on Wednesday endorsed moving forward, in concept, with creating state‑funded quality‑assurance positions to review FoodShare cases across a nine‑county consortium.
The county’s human services director, Mandy Stanley, told the board the state has directed counties to add QA positions and that the consortium expects to add roughly eight such roles. “It is fully funded by the state,” Stanley said, describing a plan in which Marquette would serve as fiscal and operational lead and hire at least one position locally.
Why it matters: the state is pressing counties to keep error rates below a federal threshold. Stanley and staff said the state now expects a minimum of 25% of FoodShare cases to be sampled for QA reviews and warned that the state’s reported aggregate error rate had risen above 6% statewide. “If we go over the 6% error rate then we have to pay money to the federal government,” Stanley said. Staff reported the East Central consortia’s current error rate is about 4.38%.
Board members pressed staff on operational impacts. Annette (economic support manager for the consortium) explained that QA reviewers cannot audit their own cases, so the county would need to move an experienced worker into the QA role and then backfill that person’s casework. “That’s why we want to backfill that employee,” Stanley said, noting the time and cost of training: “It takes two years for somebody to learn the economic support job.”
Members also discussed governance and approval steps. One supervisor noted the county recently adopted a higher threshold for creating new positions at the county‑board level, meaning a supermajority may be required to formalize any new hire. Chuck Bournemouth said that step could become a roadblock and encouraged staff to prepare the contract addendum and job description before seeking final board approval.
What the board decided: members expressed general support for pursuing the position and asked staff to draft a job description and bring a proposed plan back once the consortium contract addendum is available. No binding county‑board motion to create a position was taken at the meeting; staff said they would return with details and the required county‑board paperwork.
Next steps: staff will work with consortium partners on a job description, await the contract addendum, and present a formal proposal to this committee and (if required) to the county board for final approval.
