SIDNEY — S&H Products (S&H), the sheltered workshop that had been operated by the Shelby County Board of Developmental Disabilities (SCBDD) since 1977, became a separate, nonprofit entity, Oct. 1, and almost six months later, it has increased the number of associates it serves.
“We completed what I call our transition to independence,” said Director Michelle Herndon, Monday.
According to SCBDD Superintendent Laura Zureich, the transition was necessary because the Center for Medicaid Services “changed some rules in March 2014.”
Staff at S&H Products had been employees of SCBDD. Other staff of SCBDD had been charged with monitoring the S&H staff to make sure the funds SCBDD and Medicaid provided were paying for the services they were supposed to support. That put SCBDD in charge of monitoring itself. That, federal regulators said, was a conflict of interest and they demanded a change. Medicaid mandated that sheltered workshops had to privatize within five years.
S&H now sets its own employee policies. The number of S&H staff has not changed as a result of the transition. However, the staff of the SCBDD was decreased by 30 employees, when those people went off the SCBDD’s payroll and onto the S&H payroll.
“(That) obviously makes a difference to the (SCBDD) cost line,” said SCBDD Superintendent Laura Zureich this week. But the difference wasn’t large because there are continuing obligations to transitioned employees who elected to remain in the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System and SCBDD’s funding from the state decreases annually. Also, the county still owns the building that houses S&H, so SCBDD is responsible for its upkeep.
The transition’s good effect, Zureich said, is that SCBDD has begun to consider how to best support all the private service providers here.
“That’s a huge positive,” she said. Another one, she noted, is that SCBDD now monitors the services S&H provides without a perceived conflict of interest.
Sixty percent of the cost of service provision at sheltered workshops is covered by Medicaid; 40 percent is covered by the state, with funding that comes from SCBDD. S&H is now responsible for covering the cost of administration.
According to Chairwoman Marian Spicer, the S&H board has not yet discussed the necessity for fundraising.
“We still have some (transition) things to get under our belt, some loose ends to tie up,” she said. “The staff is doing a great job. There are new practices for compliance and because we want to do things better and better. Our staff is wonderful and our board is wonderful. We have board members who’ve looked at where the income and cost centers are. We feel good about it.”
There are also now federal requirements to provide community opportunities for people with developmental disabilities, and the S&H board has embraced the concept.
“S&H is opening up to more community opportunities for (associates), not because of the transition, but because of the outlook we’re taking,” said Herndon, who began her tenure Aug. 1.
That outlook did not start with Herndon. S&H had been operating partially as a nonprofit organization in order to offer employment in its production shops to people with disabilities; therefore, establishing a nonprofit entity was not necessary. But moving full responsibility to the S&H board and making the staff employees of S&H rather than of SCBDD necessitated careful planning and implementation.
Susan Dlouhy, president of Norwich Consulting Services, was hired in July 2014 to serve as S&H interim director and to help the S&H board figure out what direction to take. She brought with her the concept of community opportunities.
A transition committee comprising two members of the SCBDD board, two members of the S&H board, staff from each agency, Dlouhy and Zureich met monthly to create a plan and map out steps to be taken in each following month.
Twenty-two other Ohio counties had already transitioned when the Shelby County facility began to consider its own move to privitization. One of them is Champaign County, where Zureich also serves as superintendent, so the local group had the benefit of her experiences there. Another is Preble County, which created a project tracker that proved useful.
“It’s going well,” Spicer said of the work that continues. “The changes have been significant, but we hope the folks being served felt there was no disruption in what was provided to them.”
The number of associates has increased since the transition took place. Herndon sees that as a good sign.
“Associates have free choice of provider, so it’s nice when we don’t have a connection with the county board that people still see our value and choose us,” she said.
