Familiar face is panel’s pick to head financially stressed agency

County committee recommends promoting Falkner to Health and Human Services director
By 
DAN BENSOIN
Ozaukee Press staff

Kim Falkner, longtime head of the Children and Families Division in the Ozaukee Health and Human Services Department, has been recommended to be the director of the fiscally embattled department.

The county Health and Human Services Committee voted unanimously on Tuesday to recommend Falkner to the Ozaukee County Board, which will vote on her appointment when it meets on Jan. 15.

Falkner joined the county in 1999 as a social worker and took over the Children and Families Division in 2017. Her duties in that job included overseeing the foster care and birth-to-three program and helped create the Drug Endangered Children program to address the needs of children affected by drug-related issues.

Prior to joining the county, Falkner was a social worker in Milwaukee County specializing in foster care programs.

“Kim is stalwart in one of the toughest divisions in Human Services and has been since she began her career in the county,” County Administrator Jason Dzwinel said in an email.

“She brings extensive experience, proven leadership and a deep understanding of the department’s operations and the needs of the community. (She) will advance the community relationships that will move the department forward.”

Falkner succeeds Liza Drake, who left the county this fall for an out-of-state opportunity.

She has served as the acting HHS director since Drake left and has been paid an annualized salary of $132,500 in that time.

Dzwinel said her final salary will be set if she is approved by the County Board.

Her salary as acting director is within the range of the permanent position, he said.

Falkner takes over after county officials just completed what they called the “most challenging” budget process in 20 years, due primarily to the financial pressures being applied to HHS.

Those pressures include the increasing cost of placements in the department and a corresponding decrease in revenues from the state.

The department was looking at adding $2.4 million to the county levy in 2025, almost five times what the state allows the county to increase taxes by in one year.

For instance, placing someone in a mental health facility, an increasing occurrence, costs the county about $2,000 per day, up from a few hundred dollars, while the state’s reimbursement for such a placement has not changed.

Plus, the number of children requiring placement in homes also has increased in recent years, which is also a drain on county resources.

The number of wards of the county, those who are indigent or otherwise unable to care for themselves, has increased as well, including a man from Eastern Europe who  suffered a stroke while working in Grafton and now is a resident in a nursing facility at an annual cost to the county of about $250,000.

As a result, Falkner’s Children, Youth and Families Division levy support increased by $882,525, or 60%, under the new budget, the cost of group home placements is increasing $375,000, residential care center placement costs are increasing $300,000 and juvenile correctional institutional placements are increasing by $85,000.

Dzwinel and supervisors were able to balance the budget by instituting the first tax levy increase in several years, not filling several open positions in the Human Services Department, cutting operating expenses there by $279,471 and applying $725,089 from general fund savings.

Helping mitigate future budget surprises, Dzwinel said, is that the Human Services Department still has $1 million in reserves  plus another $600,000 “in the bank” from a legal settlement with drug companies and distributors that can be used to combat drug addictions and mental health issues.

Those funds will continue to increase at an annual clip of $136,921 for 16 more years.

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Wisconsin’s largest paid circulation community weekly newspaper. Serving Port Washington, Saukville, Grafton, Fredonia, Belgium, as well as Ozaukee County government. Locally owned and printed in Port Washington, Wisconsin.

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