By Rin Porter Wadena County reporter

Pay for attorney's hired to provide legal services in child protection cases consumed some of the discussion during a recent Wadena County Board meeting.

The issue the board had to decide concerned the pay for attorneys who accept CHIPS case assignments to represent economically disadvantaged parents of children who have been designated by county social services workers as in need of protection.

CHIPS stands for "children in need of protective services."

Since July 1, 2008, the Wadena County Board of Commissioners and County Attorney Kyra Ladd have been trying to find a way to provide defense services for parents of Children In Need of Protection Services (CHIPS) through contracts with private attorneys.

The need arose because Governor Tim Pawlenty cut $14 million from the state's judicial branch budget with almost no notice last June.

Ladd, Judge Sally Ireland Robertson and Court Administrator Bev Paavola have discussed different methods of payment with county commissioners and the attorneys who normally accept the cases. Questions came up during the past few months, and the county board was asked to clarify the amount of payment for the attorneys once again.

Ladd said, "The board needs to clarify how the term 'case' is to be defined: is a case one child, one family, or all children in a family where an attorney represents a parent?"

After considerable discussion, the board decided that a CHIPS attorney for a parent will be paid $500 per case for a simple hearing, regardless of how many children are affected. The attorney is assigned to the parent, not to the child or children. An attorney will be paid $1,500 for a permanency case and $3,000 for a termination of parental rights case.

MIS Department

A final money discussion on March 19 concerned the situation of the county's Management Information Systems (MIS) employees, whose boss, Kevin Stensrude, was called to active duty in Iraq and left on Feb. 28 for an eight-month leave of absence from his position as department head.

Stensrude's absence leaves the two people in the MIS department with no supervisor.

Although Stensrude was notified in late 2008 of his deployment date, Stensrude and his board liaison, Commissioner Miller, delayed officially informing the board of Stensrude's upcoming deployment until mid-February. Stensrude's attempts to arrange for how work would be done by the employees in his absence and how they would be paid were not accepted by the board at its Feb. 19 meeting. Stensrude had to leave town for his military deployment before any arrangements could be finalized.

A committee of Miller, management consultant Mike Gibson, union business manager Joann Derby, Auditor/Treasurer Char West, Ladd and one of the MIS employees met following the March 3 board meeting to discuss options.

Miller reported to the board on March 19 that he had been confused about the issues, but he now believed he understood the problems that had to be addressed. He said, "The things we have asked the MIS staff to do are not within their authority as long as they are in the union. There is a possibility of one person withdrawing from the union and serving temporarily as department head. If neither of the two people want to accept that offer, then we could ask one of the existing department heads to accept additional responsibilities for supervising these employees in Kevin's absence."

Ladd said that she believed the decision had to be put off again, because consultant Mike Gibson was not able to attend the March 19 board meeting, and he had important information that needed to be brought to the board on the matter. She also said that the issue of management duties had to be addressed, that peers should not be performing supervisory duties.

Derby spoke passionately about the need to pay the two MIS employees for the additional duties and stress that they would be taking on for eight months. She also said that the socalled "me too" clause of the union contract, which would trigger higher pay for all employees, does not apply to this situation.

Stearns said that he had not been informed of that.

Lane Waldahl said he thought the board should table the discussion until Gibson could be present to participate. Commissioners believed that Gibson had enough hours left in his contract to allow him to assist the county in resolving this matter.

Stearns made a motion to table it and to authorize Auditor/Treasurer Char West to serve as the MIS supervisor until another decision was made.

The motion passed.