Madison County considers sex offender training request

Dr. James Yonai asked the Madison County Board of Supervisors Social and Mental Health Services Committee to allow three staffers to travel to Atlanta, Ga. The request came just weeks after an out-of-town travel request by the Madison County Sheriff’s Office was shot down and at about the same time the governor’s office announced 6-percent across-the-board budget cuts.

Yonai said one of his staff was paying for the entire cost of travel, conference and accommodations himself and asking only for the time off. He said he wanted to send two others on the county’s dime.

The training is a specialty program in the field of treatment of sex offenders.

“Any reason one can’t come back and inform others?” asked Supervisor James Goldstein (D,C,I – Lebanon). “It’s hard to imagine the impact of having three people out of the office at same time.”

Goldstein said he was not questioning whether the training is useful, only the logistics of the short-staffing.

“I question whether we can afford to have three people out of the office simultaneously,” Goldstein said.

Yonai said the doctor attending and paying out of his own pocket would be able to come back and train others in the department.

Goldstein said the county couldn’t be too cautious in pinching pennies right now. At the same meeting, Dep. Director Karolyn Sayles reported the Mental Health Department’s budget realized a $130,000 error due to a billing and bookkeeping snafu.

“You don’t have hard numbers,” Goldstein said the department’s current budget status. “We don’t know what the [state] budget’s going to look like, and you may need that money.”

Yonai pulled the other two travel requests.

The remaining request for time off for the conference was unanimously approved by the four members of the committee present. The matter will move to the full Board of Supervisors Oct. 14.

Lewis Carinci (D – Oneida Wards 4 – 6) was not in attendance.

Demand for services growing along Route 31

Sayles reported the results of a survey requested by the committee earlier this year regarding provision of services to constituents in the southern portion of the county. Several other departments with satellite offices in the Morrisville and Hamilton areas reported in September that those facilities are greatly unutilized.

“There is a greater need along Route 31 corridor in Bridgeport versus Route 20,” Sayles said of the initial results. “We are waiting for a ZIP code analysis of where most of our clients are coming from.”

Yonai said he suspected the increased demand is in direct correlation to the growth in the area.

“There is a lot of new development along Route 31,” Yonai said. “We’re getting a lot of new requests for services, especially for young children from OMRDD. There are no services north of Canastota to speak of, so that’s why OMRDD has been looking at some things there.”

Yonai said a survey will be going out, and focus groups will be developed to address the issues that come to light.

“We have to decide how we tie in some of the other developmental things going on in the county,” Yonai said. “How do we tap into service centers provided by these developments?”

Yonai said the county should explore the opportunities created with the local colleges and other cooperative ventures.

“The state budget not been a blessing in regard to this,” Yonai said. “Something needs to be done outside the northeast corner of our county. When that ZIP report is done, I’m betting we will find 60 to 70 percent of our clients are coming from Lenox, Chittenango and Sullivan.”

CATEGORY: Government
TAGS: Travel, training, mental health
EDITION: Madison Eagle

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