CSB official asks Norfolk to absorb agency with care

NORFOLK

City Manager Marcus Jones and the City Council were urged Tuesday to move cautiously as they absorb the Community Services Board into city government.

The CSB is a complicated agency with 291 employees and a budget of $25 million that provides mental-health and drug-addiction care to more than 7,000 of the city's poorest residents, board Chairman Kenny Bryant told the council.

"Please don't move too quickly," said Bryant, pastor of Norfolk's Tabernacle Church. "There are difficult issues here."

Tuesday's 90-minute meeting was the first between the CSB board and the council in more than a decade, Mayor Paul Fraim said.

Jones promised to move slowly. He said the CSB board will continue as it operates now - it will set policy for the agency. However, the executive director will report to the city manager's office and not to the board, he said. CSB employees will become city employees July 1, he said.

The CSB was a largely anonymous agency until the summer of 2010, when news broke that it had paid one-time employee Jill McGlone $320,000 over 12 years even though she did not work. Although its board is appointed by the council, the agency is technically independent.

Jones recommended last month that the board become part of the city. The City Council agreed and on Feb. 28 will discuss an ordinance to make that happen.

Jones has formed a transition team, led by assistant to the city manager Wynter Benda, to figure out how to make the CSB a part of City Hall without disrupting services to residents.

CSB officials said their agency has had financial challenges in recent years. In February 2010, the CSB had cash reserves of $9.8 million. Those reserves will have shrunk to about $4 million by June 30, said Mark Moser, the CSB's chief financial officer.

Councilman Barclay C. Winn expressed alarm. "This business plan makes you broke," Winn said. Replied Moser: "Yes, it does. We have an operational model that needs to change."

Moser said budget cuts from the city and state, combined with free services provided to needy residents, have depleted the reserves. Reimbursement from private insurance and Medicaid and Medicare have plummeted, he said.

The CSB also spent about $1.8 million installing an electronic health-care records system mandated by the federal government, he added.

Interim Executive Director Charles Ray said CSB officials have trimmed costs significantly in recent months and that he will present "a sustainable and balanced budget" for next year.

Harry Minium, 757-446-2371, harry.minium@pilotonline.com