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Sawyer County HHS presents 2025 budget overview; committee agrees to forward proposal to County Board
Summary
Health & Human Services staff presented a line-by-line overview of program budgets, Medicaid cost-recovery mechanisms and staffing challenges; the committee voted to forward the proposed 2025 HHS budget to the County Board for consideration.
Health & Human Services director Julia presented a comprehensive review of the department's 2025 proposed budget, walking the committee through funding sources, program-level revenues and expense projections and key service pressures in behavioral health, child and youth services, public health and economic-support programs.
Julia told the committee that funding comes from county allocation, state aids, grants, contracts, fees and Medicaid cost-settlement recoveries; she noted uncertainty in some of those reimbursements. "For 2025 we're up to 10 million in expenses," Julia said while summarizing department totals and the mix of state aid, county levy and fund balances that plug the gap.
Behavioral health programs (including Community Support Program and Comprehensive Community Services) and youth out-of-home placements were described as major drivers of expense pressure. Julia said CCS is fully funded but other programs show multi-year deficits in historical reports and that staff are pursuing grants and billing improvements to reduce shortfalls. She also described a vacant mental-health-therapist position the department hopes to fill and emphasized efforts to increase electronic billing and maximize Medicaid reimbursements.
Public-health staffing and capacity were addressed: sanitarians, environmental health and communicable-disease services were listed along with declining revenue projections from post-COVID levels and the need to maintain certain water and lab services through separate fee funds.
Committee members asked about placement costs for youth and whether eliminating local placement options had increased outside-placement spending. Julia said placement choices and level of care determine costs, and staff are seeking diversion grants to reduce expensive out-of-home placements.
The economic-support supervisor warned the committee that the state's Medicaid Purchase Plan premium rollout had caused processing problems statewide; Sawyer County had not yet seen major complaints but county staff are monitoring and stand ready to take constituent calls.
After discussion the committee approved a motion to forward the proposed HHS budget to the County Board for consideration. Staff said they will provide additional budget materials and respond to follow-up questions as the County Board reviews the proposal.
