Cass to evaluate alternative education program before agreeing to funding

WALKER -- The Cass County Board will evaluate over the next 30 days the effectiveness of Turning Point before deciding whether the county will help fund that program.

It is an alternative education program to public school for emotionally disturbed children.

Commissioner Virgil Foster said he believes it is effective in turning around the lives of some students who are then able to re-enter public school.

He said he believes it saves the county some out-of-home child placement costs.

The program has run without a contract since September, because participating schools and the county have been unable to agree on funding formulas, Foster said.

The Cass board now will require applicants seeking to renew pull tab licenses, as well as those making new applications, to account for how much of the proceeds are spent in Cass County.

Commissioner Jim Dowson said he thinks a lot of pull tab receipts have been going to projects outside the county. Amounts and time periods those amounts were distributed will be required on reports with applications.

The board authorized Environmental Services Deputy Director Craig Gilbertson to attend a workshop in Washington, D.C., this spring where he has been invited to speak on a panel.

The board went on record supporting an effort to have the state Legislature reinstate funding to implement Mississippi Headwaters Board management plan and associated activities.

The plan covers zoning and land use along the first 400 miles of the Mississippi River corridor in cooperation with abutting counties and Leech Lake Reservation.

Cass will wait to see what changes the Legislature makes this year before writing a county policy for handling business subsidy applications.

A county moratorium on such applications remains in effect until a plan can be written.

Gail Leverson, director of Region 5 since Jan. 8, outlined services the region has provided to Cass County for economic development.

A Region 5 revolving loan fund has helped create 82 new jobs and retain 16 others in Cass since 1986, she said. The average below market interest rate loans made to businesses in the county was $34,882.

The board named Assistant County Attorney Greg Bloomstrom to represent the county on the Children's Initiative Board, with Dowson as alternate.