SULLIVAN COUNTY –– During Thursday’s Human Resources Committee meeting, legislators voted in support of a resolution which creates a County Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Policy. 

According to the approved policy, the County is “committed to fostering, cultivating and preserving a culture of diversity, equity and inclusion.”

It adds that the County’s diversity initiatives encourage and enforce: Teamwork and employee participation, permitting the representation of all groups and employee perspectives; Work/life balance through understanding and accommodating employees’ varying needs; and employer and employee contributions to the communities they serve to promote a greater understanding and respect for the diversity.

Furthermore, the policy states that any employee found to have exhibited any inappropriate conduct or behavior against others may be subject to disciplinary action.

Majority Leader Alan Sorensen, who chairs the HR Committee, spoke in favor of having such a DEI policy and the associated training which has happened and/or is scheduled to take place in the future.

“I think it’s important to have this policy in place,” said Sorensen,  “and think we have to recognize, with the training, people grew up with different backgrounds. There are still people out there that are ignorant to some of the statements they make as being insensitive. So we’ve got to put them on notice that they maybe need to change the way they think, and be more inclusive.”

Reconciliation talks

Reconciliation talks between the County and Infinite Care regarding the Care Center at Sunset Lake once again came up Thursday, this time during a Management and Budget Committee meeting.

The County and Infinite Care are supposed to reconcile the revenues and expenses at the Care Center on a quarterly basis, but have been unable to come to an agreement.

As the Democrat reported in December, Legislators Nadia Rajsz and Joe Perrello both stated that they wanted a reconciliation by this month. 

On Thursday, Rajsz requested that County Manager Josh Potosek give them a report next week or have Infinite Care come and give them a report, not just on staffing, but the financials.

Legislative Chairman Rob Doherty then accused Rajsz of making the reconciliation discussion political.

“We went over this twice in Executive Session,” said Doherty. “Twice. You were there. So if you just want to play politics with this, we can play politics with it. But if you want to tell the truth, you can tell the truth too.”

Rajsz denied that it was political and told the Democrat that she was showing support for the members of the public who have been asking about the reconcilliations.

“We need to know how Infinite Care is doing and if we are going in the right direction,” she said. 

Opioid deaths

Last week, the Democrat reported on recent statistics from the County’s ODMAP that were shared by Deputy Health and Human Services Commissioner/Sullivan County Drug Task Force Co-Chair Wendy Brown. According to Brown, for the year 2022 and the start of 2023, there have been 215 overdoses in the County, 25 fatalities and 140 incidents of Narcan being used on a call. 

Health and Human Services Commissioner John Liddle provided additional context regarding that data on Thursday.

Liddle explained that in 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the County’s opioid overdose rate was 65.5 per 100,000 population. That number improved in 2021 to 48.1 per 100,000. He stated that even though the numbers from the ODMAP aren’t final, they’d have the County somewhere in the low 30s for 2022.

“That number is very encouraging to me,” said Liddle, “and says that the work that we’re doing in the Drug Task Force is bringing that curve down of opioid related deaths in our community.”