The Greene County Supervisors recently approved withdrawing from the Heart of Iowa Community Services Region for mental health and disability services.

Supervisor Vice-Chair Dawn Rudolph sits on the regional governing board and she describes some of the issues she’s had with the region.

“I don’t feel that we are getting the services in Greene County that we need for our people. Our region has services, but they just aren’t set up the best for the smaller counties. There’s just been a lack of transparency. It’s just our best interest that we move to a different region that best helps the citizens of Greene County.”

Rudolph also noted that additional regional staff has been hired without the governing board’s approval and Regional Coordinator for Disability Services Ellen Ritter has had her job duties reduced from Audubon and Guthrie counties to just Greene County, which Rudolph adds was also done without their approval. Those three counties have a 28E agreement in place that Ritter would be responsible for coordinating services.

In the regional agreement, Rudolph says any member county can withdraw from the region with a written notice to the region prior to December 1, 2017. The resolution was effective October 16th. Rudolph points out that the Supervisors will be able to take their fund balance with them at the start of the next fiscal year on July 1st. However, whatever region Greene County partners with in the future, they will not be a voting member of the region until the start of the next fiscal year.