District 2 Supervisor Valerie Starkey was absent. Among the items discussed at Tuesday’s Del Norte County Board of Supervisors meeting:

MediCal Contribution County supervisors approved a local contribution of roughly $472,451 toward the drawdown of federal dollars used to provide care to roughly 13,000 recipients of the Partnership Health Plan.

According to Del Norte Health and Human Services Director Ranell Brown, the California Department of Healthcare Services asks local governments to provide the state contribution to draw down the funds to support the local Medi-Cal program. 

_{Thumbnail image courtesy of the Del Norte County Probation Department}

Nearly a month into a countywide hiring freeze, Del Norte’s probation chief described a catch-22 that links staffing in his department to the revenue it receives.

With a vacancy rate of about 38% overall, Lonnie Reyman said his department can only bill its funding sources for the time his staff have worked, which helps offset costs. If a position is empty, he said, there’s no one to do the work. 

Still, appearing before the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors at a time when all departments are asked to make cuts, Reyman said Del Norte County Probation has eliminated two positions and un-funded a third.The probation chief is also holding off on filling his department’s remaining vacancies, though he said the department is still running continuous recruitments.