Oconto County officials said Oct. 31 that their top priority is to maintain services to elderly and disabled people after deciding to sever a 40-year relationship with the Oconto County Commission on Aging over ongoing financial issues.
The county board voted to designate the Health and Human Services Department to run its aging benefits and meal programs and Menominee Transit to operate transportation services for the elderly and disabled, effective Jan. 1.
“Our leadership committee just felt it is time to redesignate these programs under the county umbrella,” finance director Lisa Sherman told supervisors. “We’re not entering into this lightly or hastily. It’s been weighing on our minds here at the county for a long time, and many of us have had sleepless nights thinking about this. I think everyone is saddened by this, but we feel it’s the best option going forward.”
The board also passed a resolution allocating $75,000 for possible transition costs and a past-due invoice from the auditing firm that reviews county finances. Sherman said the Commission on Aging’s failure to cover its share of the audit costs put the entire county audit in jeopardy.
The Commission on Aging is not affiliated with the Oconto County government. It is a private agency that has depended on local and state support to fund its operations.
During the public hearing on the 2025 county budget, Bobbi Knaus, elder benefits specialist for the Commission on Aging, said that if the commission loses its funding, seniors in the county will be hurt.
“It’s not going to be a smooth transition, no matter what anybody thinks,” Knaus said. “Please give us a chance. We have a new director (Tricia Hurley), an actual accountant (Kaylyn Clark) now. Between the two of them, they’re trying to get things back on track. They have a plan moving forward.”
Hurley and Clark did not speak at the meeting, but Sherman said none of the commission’s fiscal troubles are their fault.
“These are all things that happened before they came on board,” Sherman said. “They’re the ones who are kind of discovering this and digging and finding all these issues.”
The transition plan is among issues on the agenda for the Nov. 6 meeting of the Health and Human Services Board. Sherman, County Administrator Richard Heath and Health and Human Services Director Scott Shackelford all said the situation is fluid and developing on an almost daily basis.
A long time coming
Sherman outlined problems that have plagued the commission on and off since 2019. The commission was responsible for administering the county’s transportation grant from the state, using the 80% allocated for elderly transportation and sharing with the county the 20% for the disabled population served by New View Industries.
“Those payments were getting further and further behind because the commission was running into a lot of cash flow issues,” Sherman said.
The county board voted in 2019 to transfer administration of the state grant to New View Industries, which took care of getting the 80% elderly share to the commission.
The troubles flared up again in 2021, when the state intervened because of fiscal issues, Sherman said.
“The commission had major financial issues at that time,” she said. “They were quite delinquent on all of their state reporting and their claims processing. They had numerous IRS issues, either non-payment or non-filing of their quarterly payroll taxes, outstanding invoices.”
The county board at that point approved up to $100,000 in funding to help the commission straighten out its finances, including hiring a CPA consultant and replacing kitchen equipment, Sherman said.
“In 2024, basically the wheels came off again, I’m sorry to say,” she said.
Best option financially
County leaders started discussions in March about how to deal with these problems. They learned in August that the commission owes $85,000 to the IRS in payments, penalties and interest; in October, the county learned the commission had more than $63,000 in outstanding invoices due.
The administration committee in August put no money for the commission in its 2025 budget and began the process of absorbing the programs into county Health and Human Services, Sherman said.
“We just feel this is the best option financially for these programs,” she said. “We can recognize some administrative efficiencies because we already have office staff, accounting staff, those kind of things. More importantly, we believe we can bring better services to the elder population, and Health and Human Services has already begun some preliminary plans so there is not a gap in services.”
County Board Chairman Alan Sleeter said the decision hasn’t been easy for anyone.
“In the leadership group that was formed, I said all along the end result here is we gotta make sure that our adult residents are served,” Sleeter said. “We serve around 200 meals a day, and that can’t be interrupted, and that’s what we’re trying to do in transition.”
Transition underway
Robert Webster, a bus driver for the Commission on Aging senior transportation program, said during the budget hearing that he delivers people who are in wheelchairs to doctor’s appointments in places like Green Bay, Marinette, Oconto Falls and Iron Mountain, Michigan.
“I was told the other day I can’t do that anymore for November and December, and it’s a question for 2025,” Webster said. “My first feeling is, ‘How are these people going to get to their medical appointments?’ I was told, ‘Well, there’s no money left in the budget, nothing more appropriated.’”
Shackelford said the commission and the Menominee tribe submitted the only proposals for 2025 transportation services. After reviewing the bids Oct. 24, officials decided to award the contract to Menominee Transit for $121,093.
“I think they have the capacity to have a global route in town (the city of Oconto), also a rural route,” he said. “They will also take care of medical transportation.”
The county has an ethical obligation to handle the funds responsibly and provide quality services to the people who need them, Shackelford said in support of the request for transitional funds.
The resolution passed 21-8 by the board. It authorizes, from the 2024 contingency fund, to pay the county auditor balance of about $23,000 and other costs involved with keeping services going during the transition.
“I don’t know today; I can’t confidently say that the Commission on Aging will make it to the end of the year,” Heath said. “We have to have some funds set aside to continue the service. … We have to make sure that we can shore this up and move forward. We need to have some dollars in there just to make sure it keeps going.”
It’s up to the Commission on Aging board how to deal with the IRS and vendors’ bills, Heath said, while the county works on maintaining continuous service.
“We want to assure people that our intent as a county is not to let this fall off and then rebuild it over the first quarter of next year,” he said. “This resolution gives us some working capital so to speak to keep the programs moving.”
wbluhm@newmedia-wi.com
Oconto County takes over senior services
