Supervisors Hear From Agency On Aging And Talk 911 Lawsuit

The Mahaska County Supervisors hear from MCARD Director Deann DeGroot on Monday.

Oskaloosa, Iowa – The Mahaska County Board of Supervisors met in regular session on Monday morning, in the 3rd floor conference room of the Mahaska County Courthouse.

On the agenda, the board heard reports from Mahaska County Conservation, MCARD, and signed a HIPAA Business Associate Agreement with Iowa Counties Technology Services (ICTS)

The board then heard a report from Cheryl Brown, Director at Mahaska County Agency on Aging.

Brown shared a brief history of the organization, that hosted its first meals in the Downing Hotel in October of 1973, which was the first congregate meal site in the State of Iowa.

The need continued, and the organization continued to grow. By 1977, the group had purchased the old Nichols Cafe along High Avenue West.

In order for the mall to be constructed in 1985, the Nichols Cafe building came down, and the group built along B Avenue West, near Norwich and Inglenook Apartments. They made nearly 17,000 meals that year.

In 2005, the group had an opportunity to acquire the old Grant Elementary School, moving in to the remodeled facility in 2009. The group was serving 250 clients, including the Meals on Wheels routes around Mahaska County.

In just a few years after the move, the center was serving over 400 clients and serving nearly 76,000 meals.

A board member was quoted by Brown as saying, “Since 1973, our mission has been to serve those who have made the community what it is today, by vowing to provide senior citizens a source of balanced nutrition and to promote their well-being.”

Brown explained that volunteers “have always been the backbone of this agency. They work diligently to maintain a safe and up-to-date facility while remaining committed to the well-being of senior citizens, and effectively and continually reinventing themselves and the facility to keep up with the demand and ideals of the ever changing senior population.”

Brown said the senior center will be celebrating 45 years this fall. “It’s gone from a sack lunch from Hy-Vee in the small meeting room at the Downing Hotel, to a wonderfully appointed handicap site with a licensed kitchen and enough room for a myriad of programs and activities.”

Brown encouraged people to volunteer, saying that she knows at the end of the day, she and those volunteers made a difference.

The board also signed a binder agreement with Wellmark adding Doctor on Demand effective September 1st, 2018.

“It was discussed at the EMA meeting that nobody really wins through litigation,” Mahaska County Supervisor Mark Groenendyk said in updating the other supervisors where that process stands. “So we’re hoping this gets resolved.”

Groenendyk said that the reason the agreement isn’t working now is that the 28E agreement between EMA and E911 is illegal.

When the two boards agreed to have EMA run the day-to-day operations of E911, the groups used a 28E agreement Johnson County had developed.

Groenendyk said that each board was doing their own responsibilities. “The 911 Board is a separate board that gets funded through the EMA. The board was still doing their own responsibilities, not the EMA board”.

Groenendyk believes that each board, EMA and E911 in Mahaska County are acting as a single board.

Before the EMA meeting in question, the E911 Board for Mahaska County had met to hire an attorney.

Supervisor Willie Van Weelden said “I think what some people fail to realize in this whole process is that it was done before they were put together was a formula. And now, since they put the two together, everything goes through general basic. Everybody pays it. It’s all fine and good. But it freed up money in the towns budgets for their levy. I’m guessing it went from 500 to 600 hundred-thousand a year out of our budget to a million-two. So that ties up money in our budget.”

“I think it’s a fairer way if you pay on the population type thing, and that’s the way it was for years until they were put together,” said Van Weelden. “That’s where I’m at on this too.”

According to Iowa Code, Emergency Management is now its own municipality, and the 13 elected officials that make up the EMA Board set their own tax rate to provide services.

The Mahaska County Supervisors have disagreed with that rule, and say that the funding comes from their budget, and they have to approve the funding for EMA.

Problems were discovered when EMA took over the day-to-day operations and funding of E911, when it was discovered many employees were unable to take vacations, and had acquired a years worth of vacation pay.

It was also discovered that E911 was using surcharge money to pay for wages, and not on state mandated equipment.

Surcharge money are those tax dollars collected from telephone users.

The lawyers will continue to work to come to an agreement by August 29th, and Groenendyk said he hopes there can be an agreement.