CARING COUNCIL MAY SOON DO ITS OWN HIRING

Members of the Community Caring Council on Friday gave approval for the council to move forward with becoming its own hiring agent, a move prompted by the growth of council programs.

The Caring Council is made up of representatives from area service agencies and began about 11 years ago to bring those representatives together to share information, said Shirley Ramsey, executive director of the Community Caring Council.

But as community needs have been identified and grants and state money obtained for programs to meet those needs, the Caring Council has taken on the role of administering those programs. The hiring of and payment of salaries to people to run those programs, however, has been contracted out to other agencies, Ramsey said.

"The subcontracting agency would do the hiring and payroll, then invoice us for the cost of the salary, plus some administrative costs" Ramsey said.

The number of programs funded through the Caring Council has grown so much, however, that it now makes sense for the council to do its own hiring and payroll.

Programs now funded through Community Caring Council include Caring Communities, which serves the May Greene Blanchard, Franklin, Jefferson and Clippard School neighborhoods; Inter-Agency Staffing Team; Welfare to Work Collaborative Plan, which includes Jump Start on Jobs; Missouri Mentoring Partnership; Proud Parents, a program for non-custodial parents; Early Childhood Care and Education, a program to train in-home child-care providers; Healthy Children Education Initiative and Project Hope Faith-Based Mentoring Program. Also, Educare and PACT juvenile delinquency prevention program are both affiliated with the Caring Council.

The Caring Council has not-for-profit status and has been authorized to be a hiring agent for some time now, Ramsey said. Now that members have approved the Caring Council becoming its own hiring agent, a task force will move forward with developing personnel policies covering such things as hiring, fringe benefits and vacation.

The move will also likely require a change in the bylaws of the Caring Council. At this time, the council board serves in an advisory capacity, with final approval of council business coming from members at monthly meetings.

But because the Caring Council is an open organization, there is a proposal to have the board give final approval, especially when the council business may involve personnel or legal issues, Ramsey said.

The vote on the bylaws likely will come at the next meeting June 16.

"We see this as a sign of progress," Ramsey said. "To meet the needs of the community, you have to move with the times. This seems to be the way to go."