Floyd County supervisors want to move Iowa DHHS workers into courthouse

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

The future location of Iowa Department of Health and Human Services staff in Floyd County came up for discussion during the Board of Supervisors meeting this week, with a DHHS administrator unsure if space in the courthouse would work to move the staff into, and some supervisors fairly resolute the courthouse would be the best place for them.

Currently the Iowa DHHS staff members in Floyd County are located in a county-owned building at 1206 S. Main St. The space in that building was previously shared with County Social Services, and the two organizations shared costs for the building, with DHHS covering a little more than two-thirds of the costs.

Erin Casella, the business manager for the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, based in Waterloo, was at the supervisors meeting Monday morning.

“At this point we don’t necessarily need 100% of that building space, but we recognize that us only paying 68.2% kind of leaves the county also with no one to pay the rest of that,” Casella said.

“We would be willing to pay 100% of those bills going forward, with the understanding that we’re going to keep looking for another tenant that would make sense, someone that potentially our clients would also be working with, to utilize that space,” Casella said.

But Supervisor Dennis Keifer said his goal is to get DHHS into the first floor of the courthouse, which has much of its space vacant because of a reshuffling of county offices that occurred after the Sheriff’s Office and the county jail moved into the new LEC.

Casella said there are still many unknowns involving the DHHS, which was created by a merger officially effective July 1 of the Iowa Department of Public Health and the Iowa Department of Human Services, as the first step in Gov. Kim Reynolds’ state government reorganization plan.

In the next year or two the size of the DHHS staff in Floyd County could grow or it could decrease, Casella said. One study said additional caseworkers are needed in Floyd County, but they are having trouble filling six positions that are currently open.

Remote workers could be given permission to work remotely permanently, or they could be called back into the office, Casella said.

“Given the number of employees that we have today, it would probably not work for the space as it’s set up. We would need more room for the number of employees that we have today,” Casella said about the courthouse space.

Supervisor Chair Mark Kuhn said he had thought discussions had been further along toward relocating DHHS.

“I thought this could be a likely spot for the DHS to be here. There’s some real financial reasons why Floyd County would like to move DHS into this building,” he said. Besides using unoccupied space in the courthouse, moving DHHS from the 1206 S. Main building would allow the county to sell that building.

County Auditor Gloria Carr said it may be possible to make more of the space on the first floor available for use, and Keifer said there are other spaces in the courthouse that might be utilized as well.

“I keep getting back to the point that we’re spending taxpayer money. We have to do it as wisely as we can,” Keifer said. “It doesn’t make sense to have an empty floor in the courthouse that’s not being used, and a half-empty building on South Main.”

Casella said there would be benefits to being located in the courthouse, but “we have to find a space that works for both of us. And we want to do that. And that’s why I’m trying to be as forthcoming with the information we have.”

Kuhn asked if Casella would commit to getting the necessary state people together to talk about this, and fairly quickly, and Casella agreed.

Keifer said, “We have to make it work over here. It’s probably going to happen.”

Also this week, the supervisors appointed Dawn Staudt, station manager of AMR ambulance service, as a member to the Floyd County Emergency Medical Systems (EMS) Advisory Council, joining four other members who were appointed last week.

It will be the council’s job to evaluate EMS services in Floyd County and make a recommendation to the supervisors on how to support those services, including the potential of recommending the supervisors call for a vote asking Floyd County residents if they support a new property tax or state income tax surcharge, or combination of the two, to support EMS services in the county.