General assistance work will be temporarily handled by county clerk’s office

YORK – For the time being, the York County Clerk’s office will be handling general assistance inquiries and applications.

​This comes as the person who had been handling this work in the district court clerk’s office no longer wanted to have the task and the commissioners started looking at options.
“Just for some history, general assistance responsibilities have been bounced around over the years,” explained York County Commissioner Chairman Randy Obermier. “It was done within the public defender’s office for a number of years, handled by the administrative assistant there, until it was moved to the district court office. We used to pay the person who handled it for a couple of hours a pay period and then it just morphed into the duties of the deputy clerk of the district court. That’s where the position has been.
“But it takes a special person to deal with general assistance and this really isn’t the work of the district court office,” Obermier continued. “Granted, this is not something we get a lot of (as far as inquiries and applications) but we need to talk about how we want to do this. I guess we just need some input. The clerk’s office has indicated they are willing to help with this in the time being.”
He noted how he had a conversation with Avery Blum from the York County Community Coalition (YC3) about a possible collaboration.
Blum told the commissioners how her agency already works with people who might qualify/need general assistance.
“This might be something in which we could work with you,” Blum said.
When someone applies for general assistance grants, the caseworker assists the applicant and then presents their request – in executive session – to the commissioners. The commissioners determine if the request qualifies for this form of financial assistance.
The financial assistance can be for things like rent and medication, as examples, after all other sources have been exhausted. The most common request for general assistance is for cremation services when the deceased has no assets and no one is responsible for the arrangements.
“We could have a more in-depth conversation with Avery about this, if you want,” Obermier said to his fellow county board members.
“I’d like to outsource some of that and see how we could best use the YC3 resources,” Commissioner Andy Bowman said.
“If Mary’s (County Clerk Melby) office is willing in the interim until we figure out the best fit, that’s fine in my book,” said Commissioner Daniel Grotz.
“We will take it one temporarily, we can although we are busy too,” Melby said.
“And I will continue to be the contact as I have in the past,” Obermier added.
A motion passed to allow interim work to be done by the clerk’s office until the county board comes up with a long-term solution.