Commissioners endorse Highland County Children Services levy renewal

Highland County commissioners David Daniels, Brad Roades and Terry Britton voted via resolution to officially endorse the Highland County Children Services levy renewal issue on the March 19 primary election ballot during their Wednesday, March 13 meeting.

As previously reported, the agency is seeking a 0.9-mill levy on the March 19 primary ballot. A proposed five-year, one-mill replacement levy for the agency failed in the Nov. 7 general election. 

The previous tax levy, which was first approved in November 2013 and renewed by voters in November 2018, was a five-year, .9-mill levy for Children Services placement costs and expired Dec. 31, 2023. The levy the agency is seeking this month would be at the same rate.

Daniels read the resolution for the levy issue endorsement in its entirety. Among the reasons for the endorsement were the fact that “the total number of children in the agency custody since 2018 has increased 67 percent, and [there has been a] 111-percent increase in placement costs,” as “Highland County spends more than $10,000 a day in foster care costs.

“All children deserve to be protected from abuse, neglect and dependency,” the resolution says. “The agency strives to keep children safe, growing up in stable families with supportive communities.”

Although not mentioned during the commissioners’ meeting, listed under correspondence on the agenda was an “open letter” from Highland County Prosecutor Anneka Collins — dated March 5 and addressed to commissioners, their clerks and Highland County Job & Family Services Director Jeremy Ratcliff — that also spoke highly of the HCCS agency.

Collins wrote that on March 20, she will have worked for the Highland County Prosecutor’s Office for 18 years, and during that entire time frame she has “been representing” the HCCS agency “in some capacity.” She wrote about some of the struggles during that time frame, including seeing “at least five directors and a great number of case workers,” problems with paying foster parents and case workers, and legal issues with the agency.

Collins wrote that when Ratcliff was hired in 2021, “almost immediately, the change in the case workers was noticeable,” as there was a “positive change almost as soon as Jeremy took over.

“Recently, I have been handling cases in Juvenile Court on a regular basis,” Collins wrote. “These cases are primarily cases involving Children Services. It has been a pleasure to work with Children Services, starting with Jeremy and continuing with every supervisor and case worker. These case workers again have genuine dedication to their jobs and to the children they are sworn to protect. They are working all hours, doing everything in their power to make children safe. 

“With good leadership, anything is possible, and Jeremy has proven to be great leadership. He trusts the case workers to do what is right, and they have earned the trust of everyone in the Prosecutor’s Office; they continue to impress me daily.”

Collins then wrote about the costs involved with the agency. As previously reported, commissioners voted last August to approve the request from Ratcliff to seek the one-mill replacement levy for Children Services — which failed in November — amid rising cases and associated costs for the agency over the past several years. 

The week after the levy failed, on Nov. 15, Ratcliff said that HCCS was "approaching $4 million in placement costs this year [2023].” At that same meeting, Collins explained the reasoning for some of the more high-cost placements, such as residential housing facilities, for some of the children in the agency’s care, an issue she also addressed in her open letter.

“Many of the children that are taken into the care and custody of the Agency are children that must be placed in residential treatment facilities, and the costs of this type of placement can be astronomical,” Collins wrote. “Children that have been severely abused and neglected often have to be placed in residential treatment. Jeremy and Gene [Myers, assistant director] go above and beyond to try to defray these costs by working with other counties and various agencies, but the costs of proper and adequate treatment for these children can be substantial. The Juvenile Court will order the parents to pay support, if they are working and there is a way to pay support; however, frankly, those parents with the ability to pay are few and far between.”

In November, Ratcliff said that the county has “multiple kids in those types of placements that are $10,000 per month, per child.”

Prior to endorsing the levy Wednesday, commissioners heard several updates from Ratcliff, both regarding Children Services and other matters.

On the HCCS side, Ratcliff provided commissioners with a copy of a memorandum of understanding “between Children Services and law enforcement” on “how we will collaborate and work together to provide children services in this county.

“I submitted it to ODJFS in, I think, June of ’22, and they just got around to reviewing it,” Ratcliff said. “They asked me to add an attachment that says a copy has been presented to the commissioners.”

Also shared by Ratcliff was a packet of photos from a recent incident at the JFS agency, where he said HCCS case workers removed three children from a dangerous situation and placed them in a pod at the Hi-TEC building. 

“You can kind of get an idea as to what was done, I'd say during a 36-hour period, when our staff were sleeping in the building and trying their best to protect and keep these kids from hurting themselves,” Ratcliff said. “They tore desks apart, throwing the cots, bit staff members multiple times. We think we've got that pretty well cleaned up, but I just thought you’d like to see what three children were able to do. It was a long night for our staff.”

The agency has since “found placement for them,” Ratcliff said.

Britton asked, “Is there anything we need to talk about as far as how we can handle these kids that are this unruly?”

“I think it’s worth having that conversation,” Ratcliff said. “You can't blame these children. I mean, they're under the age of 10. It was a trauma response. But, you know, when you see your staff getting bit, desks and chairs thrown at them, it's a challenge.

“It’s worth having that conversation among our our external partners to see if there are other options in the future at the time. You know, we thought that was the best option, just because they're not in the office space. That pod is pretty secluded, it's pretty quiet, it was a quiet place for them to sleep. That still wasn't enough to kind of be able to deescalate them. I mean, it was heartbreaking.”

As of the most recent data Ratcliff had Wednesday, he said that there were approximately 172 children in the agency’s care. 

Regarding medical assistance, Ratcliff said that the end of March will be the end of the current “phase” of the Medicaid rollback. 

As explained by Ratcliff last September, “During the pandemic, no JFS was allowed to take negative action” on Medcaid clients. 

“We could not remove somebody from Medicaid coverage,” Ratcliff said in September. “Now that that's been rolled back, now we need to redetermine who is eligible, who stays on and who's not eligible and who comes off.”

Also in September of 2023, commissioners voted 3-0 to approve an agreement for Washington County to assist in processing Highland County Medicaid cases, after Highland County struggled to meet the state’s 90-percent monthly benchmark.

“We have averaged over 100-percent renewal rate, since September of last year,” Ratcliff said Wednesday. “We got a little behind early on in that phase, but we've averaged over 100-percent processing Medicaid renewals, and we're talking thousands. 

“We still have 14,000, approximately, citizens in Highland County, that are Medicaid recipients, which, you know, is down from 16,000 in February of last year, but it's still approximately a third of the county that are Medicaid recipients through our office. It's been a heavy lift for our staff. We’ve never been fully staffed during that period of time.”

Ratcliff added that the state and federal agencies have been pushing a “return to business operations pre-COVID.

“I think I might have five staff that remember what that's like, pre-COVID,” he said. “Everybody else has been hired during COVID or after, so they really had to learn a different way to do their job, and they performed remarkably well.

“We have a backlog of cases to still work through, but I'm really proud of what they've done in that unit.”

In other discussion:

• Commissioners met with representatives of several different county offices, including the Probation, Emergency Management and Sheriff’s departments. Read more at: https://highlandcountypress.com/news/commissioners-hear-updates-oneohio….

• Commissioners issued a proclamation recognizing March as Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month in Highland County during their Wednesday, March 13 meeting. See more at: https://highlandcountypress.com/news/highland-county-commissioners-reco….

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