April 24, 2025 Minutes

Weld County Case Management Agency - Community Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes

Date: Thursday 7/24/2025
Time: 9:00am-11:00am

  1. Welcome and Introductions

    1. Attending: Leticia Arguello, Cathy Laws, Victoria Moul, Brittany Logue, Dawn Simmons, Angela Korthaus (Presenting), & Cassie Bixler (Notetaker).
      1. Absent: Regina Hunt
    2. Will focus on recruitment moving forward and open to any referrals for folks who may be a good fit.
      1. If you know anyone with lived experience or anyone who may want to join, please send information to Angela and she will reach out to coordinate.

  2. Review/approval of meeting minutes from meeting on 1/23/2025.

    1. No Questions.

  3. Forth qtly meeting for Fiscal Year 2024-2025

    1. CMA Updates (PowerPoint)

      1. Slide 2: Discussion regarding how funds were determined for what staff to hire.
        1. There had been a delay due to technical issues with new system "Workday" that we were unable to pull budgeting information previously.
        2. This additional staff will be used to lower all ongoing caseload sizes with the goal of being at a 1:65 ratio.
        3. Currently completed first round of hiring and have 5 case managers they would like to hire if approval is received.
          1. Start date may not be until 5/19 depending on their agreement to the start recommended start date.
            1. Delay of date is so new staff can start on a date of a scheduled orientation.
          2. Have another round of hiring meetings scheduled this week and next round would be completed 5/2.
          3. We also received approval to add a specialist position. A specialist is a Team Lead who conducts training for all new case managers and helps to support case managers in the field (Currently have 4 specialists and will have 5 soon).
        4. Sandy Hasch had retired effective 5/15 and we are happy for her but will miss her and her wealth of knowledge and insight.
          1. We have posted for her position and have hired the position and are waiting for CAPs check to be completed. Once this check is completed, we will be able to announce the candidates name and they are expected to start soon.
        5. There have been many discussion about how the new staff will be placed and have teams will be redistributed to be efficient.

    2. Slide 3

      1. One of the updates is 2 of the new case managers will go to our Intake team to best support this team and help these individuals complete this process.
        1. Currently we have been having other teams assist this team to complete the increased intakes but will be able to limit this once new staff are trained.

    3. Slide 4

      1. Seven of the newly hired case managers will go to the Non-IDD/AD team, 1 position is to backfill an individual who was promoted to specialist and 6 newly appointed positions.
      2. Currently there will not be a new CM added to the IDD team as they are within the 1:65 ratio.
        1. This may be evaluated in the future due to caseload sizes increasing.
      3. There will be 2 new staff added to children's team.
        1. Expected there will be in an influx of individuals applying for the children's waivers with the changes due to CFC beginning 7/1.
      4. Other teams (FSSP and State SLS) have different needs, and we do not foresee adding staff to these programs at this time.
        1. We have seen a decrease is individuals on State SLS and are reviewing the reason for the decrease.

    4. Question from Victoria:

      Weld County is doing great. Better than TRE and other areas. Stated to Shared concerns with HCPF of changes may cause a huge increase in needs and how do they propose to mitigate employee burnout. Concerns HCPF has not been able to respond to concerns but is curious if there is a roster of potential hires if team is overwhelmed and would the budget support this? Concerned there is a rumor going around of many individuals getting kicked off waivers and having to go to other programs. Hugely concerned about staff burnout.
      1. Angela: Agreed. Currently this is why we are doing hiring now to try and have staff in place ASAP. With budget there also must be approval from the county commissioners to add any new positions to the CMA. We have proposed an addition of 5 individuals for 2026. The budget would still have to be reanalyzed and have growth and needs reviewed.
        1. There will unfortunately be 6 months of 2025 left where we do not know what this (CFC changes) will look like, and we are prepared to shift workloads internally to work with growth and caseload coverage. We do not expect there will be ability to increase staff outside of current growth but will continue to advocate the CMAs needs as they develop.
          1. Further question from Victoria- How can CAC/Individuals support helping CMA to carry caseloads and how can they help to express importance of coverage (to legislation/HCPF)?
          2. Angela: This is a good question and Angela will connect with Kelly on what CAC or anyone in the community can do to help advocate. Follow up with CAC/Victoria.
          3. Victoria- Concern is behind HCPF does not seem to think about the infostructure and how this will alter programs and services for the kids as there does not seem to be a lot of insight before requiring changes. Heavily concerned children and families will suffer the consequences of losing services. Also concerned as families are not afraid to advocate for their needs and truly believe there needs to be a plan of how everyone can support each other so we do not fail these families.
          4. Angela: There will be further discussions about how to advocate for these families and make sure these folks do not fall through the cracks.
          5. Letica- Having meeting with HCPF and their management has requested to have consistent meetings with HCPF to help with advocating for families.
          6. Angela: Would love if Leticia can report out at these meetings and status each time.
            1. Acknowledges there are a lot of changes that will happen 7/1 and maybe not everything has been discussed yet and would love to discuss this information at our next meeting in July.
          7. Dawn- Wants to point out our Board is supportive of our needs but also wants to be very thoughtful on the County growth and wants to respond in a thought-out way rather than a crisis mindset. Dawn appreciates this process as it helps team
          8. to maintain their growth and not have to go through cuts at later times.
          9. Angela: Agree, Board and County Commissioners are very aware of needs and while we advocate for our needs they listen and help to advocate on our behalf.
            1. Jamie (Director of DHS) has been a huge advocate at her level and trying to discuss our needs and changes and for the CMA as a whole, all CMA's are struggling with CM burnout, caseload sizes, and preparing for changes to make sure families don't suffer from these changes.
          10. Many discussions regarding burdens and how documentation/administrative burdens can be changed and are trying to come up with plans prior to implementation. Currently anticipating there will be an influx of people. Even with the nurse assessor program there will still be a delay due to how quickly they are able to complete their process, the delay will hopefully help timelines.
          11. When we meet in July, we will hopefully have more information about how the changes are occurring and if the team is being successful or what concerns have popped up.
            1. Request: Anytime you have concerns or hear concerns in the community, please reach out to Angela to have these conversations so she can discuss impact and what is happening. This will help so no one becomes insulated and loses sight of some of the concerns due to being focused on specific points. Connect via call or email.
        2. Slide 5:
        3. Met with Kelly and based off suggestions from Brittany and notes regarding assistive technology and agreed CM training really needs to improve and will work on what that should look like policy wise.
          1. Working closely with logistics to come up with a new training program to cover the different devices they may encounter while assisting families.

  4. Review of CMA Policy and Procedure

    1. Shout out to Dawn for helping with finding the inconsistencies and language in the Policies. Huge help with her focus looking to correct capitalizations, punctuation, format, and grammar.
    2. Confidentiality
      1. No Comments, only formatting
    3. Conflict of Interest-Contract Mgmt
      1. No Comments, only formatting
    4. Conflict of Interest-Members
      1. Comments in doc.
    5. Contractor Records
      1. Comments in doc.
    6. Emergency On-Call
      1. Comments in doc.
    7. FSSP Wait List Mgmt
      1. Comments in doc.
    8. HCBS DD Wait List Mgmt
      1. Comments in doc.
    9. Human Rights Committee Conflict of Interest
      1. Comments in doc.
    10. Member and Individual Rights
      1. Comments in doc.

  5. Review of Complaints/Trends

    1.  Slide 6-
      1. Discussion regarding timeliness of outreach for complaints.
      2. Leticia and Cathy- Agrees these are completed timely.
    2. No questions regarding complaints and follow up.
    3. Angela confirms they are noticing it seems like there is a trend of the complaints are primarily due to lack of communication and there are discussions on reminding CM's clear and timely communication is important.
    4. Review of Exceptions to the Defined Service Area

  6. Review of Exceptions to the Defined Service Area

    1. Believes that denials will most likely continue to be the response for the foreseeable future due to caseload sizes.

  7. Membership discussion

    1.  Brittany- What are the processes when a CM leaves? How does the family/member receive communication.
      1. She dealt with this recently and had to hunt down to find out the case manager had left and had been unaware of the change.
        1. Recommends putting a notice on phones/emails for updated communication contact.
        2. Angela- Will follow up why there was not communication of change on individual on CES waiver.
    2. Dawn- Is it possible to set a recurring calendar invite for this meeting.
      1. Yes- can set an invite and will add the meeting link later.
    3. Cathy- Are there any summer events upcoming for community members?
      1. No- We do not have anything planned for this time.
      2. Letica- Is aware of some events and will send information to the group.

  8. Member Updates

    1. Next meeting 7/24
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