Local Judge trying to insure money for a frequent petitioner in her court room!

[laura smith]

Can you say conflict of interest? Please attend the next meeting with Cass County Commissioners and ask our local government: Why are you allowing this?

Commission Chambers

120 North Broadway, Suite 217, Cassopolis

September 2, 2010 Board of Commissioners - 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month at 7pm. Next meeting September 16, 2010

Cass County’s family court and federally fund sucking activist Judge Susan L. Dobrich is doing the bidding at the counties commission meetings for the Department of Human Services. Since the commissioners control the money that comes in from state and local taxes Dobrich is trying to make sure business as usual continues. Dobrich calls herself a local? The only local she has ever been is paid for by local tax dollars. I guess that is not enough for her and she wants the nation (federal taxes) to contribute to her $80,000 plus salary. She is suppose to be a non-partial judge but she is concerned how the DHS will get paid!

We need to go the commissioner meeting and tell them this judge should be impeached for biding for a petitioner that will appear in her court room against the people of this county!!

Public per diem opposition before county board

Posted 2 weeks, 5 days ago at 9:56 pm.

By JOHN EBY

Dowagiac Daily News

CASSOPOLIS — Judge Susan Dobrich placed before the Cass County Board of Commissioners Thursday night a resolution that would oppose a proposed public per diem, which she explained as a state “scheme” to shift costs back to the local level.

Dobrich, of Dowagiac, is president of the Michigan Probate Judges Association.

The resolution, which commissioners could take up later in a lengthy meeting still going on at deadline, would add Cass’s opposition to the proposed Department of Human Services public per diem fee “for the reasons that it provides no benefit for Cass County foster care children, shifts administrative cost for DHS to the county and violates the Headlee (tax limitation) Amendment.”

Dobrich and DHS Director Chris Kadulski also made a presentation to commissioners on how the Child Care Fund operates and what it covers as they wrangle with the 2011 budget year starting Oct. 1.

“Since 2000, we’ve lost 837,000 jobs in this state,” Dobrich said, “and, at the state level, expenses are exceeding the revenue. But for the stimulus program, we’d have much more severe cutbacks. Your 2012 will be a terrible year for local government.”

“With this,” said the judge, whose caseload is determined 80 percent by substance abuse, such as methamphetamine busts which feed children into the foster care system, including two more Thursday night, “the message is the state is constantly trying to shift costs down to us locals and expect us to bear the issue they’re faced with at the state level.”

Understand, Dobrich told the board, when cases are petitioned into her court, “We assign it to (DHS) for supervision and care, for which there are statutory fees in Michigan.

“DHS, however, can contract with private agencies to provide supervision and care. If the case is assigned to a private agency by DHS, the private agency receives $37 per day per child for administrative costs. There’s a huge move in this state to privatize foster care completely.”

Dobrich referred to a Grand Rapids state senator “who now thinks, to even the playing field, that we should pay a public per diem for us having to partner with our state Human Services employees. In essence, that would be like us saying if you need the state police, you need to pay for those troopers, even though they’re state employees.”

“The scheme proposed by the Senate requires counties to pay $40 per day per child administrative fee, which would be $18 to us because they want us to pay 45 percent rather than 50 percent to be nice.

“For every child in foster care if DHS supervises them. First of all, that violates the Headlee Amendment. It’s illegal and what it really is is a cost shift. Privatizing foster care ends up costing us more.

“Chris and I have some very strong concerns, not only about the public per diem, but the private per diem, which pushes up the cost. Even though we, the courts, don’t choose to have private agencies supervise, a federal lawsuit requires DHS workers to only have a certain number of cases. If they go over that number,” it triggers the private-agency option.

Counties pay 50 percent of the cost of care for children in foster care through what is known as foster care maintenance payments.

“I don’t always believe in conspiracies,” Dobrich commented, “but I think there are a lot going on for different reasons, including greed.”

Commissioner David Taylor, D-Edwardsburg, expressed a desire to introduce the resolution when the board came to it on the agenda.

[laura smith]

Sounds like Mike Cox has the right idea about how to help the economy.


Mike Cox's Plan...$2 Billion in Tax Cuts
Written by Lindsay Catherine
Tuesday, 08 September 2009 20:09
Attorney General and 2010 Gubernatorial Candidate, Mike Cox released his 61 page plan entitled "Putting Michigan Back to Work: The First Steps", which includes his plan for his first year as Michigan's new Governor.


In this literature, he says that "Tax reform is the way to empower and give hope to our citizens, grow jobs, and send a message to the rest of the country that Michigan is open to jobs - and the 21st Century." According to his plan, Cox will cut taxes by $2 billion in his first year alone, which he believes would spur growth in our state's economy.

Michigan's unemployment rate always on the rise, and we are expected to lose our 1 millionth job next year. Mike Cox realizes the need to bring jobs to Michigan, and his solution is to cut the Michigan Business Tax (MBT) by 50% at first, then completely eliminate the MBT altogether. According to his plan, Cox sees that the "best 'tax credit' is a low rate for every business" and wants to "create the environment for businesses and families to thrive", he believes that this can successfully be achieved with lower taxes.

But are tax cuts really the way to go? With our state in such a deficit, the opposing side sees that there is no feasible way to provide these extensive tax cuts. A newly formed coalition under the name "A Better Michigan Future", has called upon the legislature and the Governor to make the changes they believe our state needs. Their suggestions include a reform to the tax structure, and raise almost $3 billion in revenue, as opposed to cutting taxes.

A Better Michigan Future argues that tax cuts may be a short-term answer to our problem, but in the long-run, Michigan needs serious tax reform.