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HHS asks board to approve revised case aide/interpreter job description and consider additional lead positions
Summary
Public health staff asked the board to approve a revised case aide job description adding interpreter duties, citing 45% Spanish-speaking caseload in family home visiting and grant funding covering 75% of the position; commissioners also discussed adding two lead worker positions and restructuring the administrative services manager role amid high caseloads and turnover.
Todd County Health & Human Services staff presented two related personnel proposals during the work session on April 1: (1) revise the paraprofessional case aide job description to create a case aide/interpreter role that requires bilingual ability and 40 hours of interpreter training; and (2) consider adding two financial-services lead-worker positions or an accounting supervisor to address high caseloads and turnover in multiple HHS programs.
Catherine (HHS public-health staff, speaker 14) explained the impetus for the interpreter role: Spanish is the county's predominant non-English language, and the family home visiting caseload is about 45% Spanish-speaking. She said interpreter certification requires 40 hours of training and that the "promising practices" family home visiting grant covers about 75% of the position for another four years; the remaining 25% is foundational public-health funding. "The requirement is 40 hours of interpreter training," Catherine said, describing certification standards.
Commissioners and HR staff discussed process questions: whether the position should be posted as a new job, how Gallagher (classification consultant) would grade any new or reworked job description, and whether internal incumbents would need to apply. Board members emphasized the need to send a red-line copy to Gallagher to confirm grading implications and requested a Word version of the draft job description for personnel review. Commissioners also heard from HHS leaders about caseload metrics (one example: METS workers with caseloads above 800 in the local system) and were presented with options to add two lead workers to provide 1:1 training support or to create an accounting supervisor to take on Jenna's administrative duties.
The board did not vote to adopt final job descriptions at the work session and directed staff to follow the personnel-review process, consult Gallagher as appropriate (at an approximate fee the administration estimated), and return with clarified red-line job descriptions, org charts, and cost implications for further board consideration.
