CHS staff—even those who have worked here for many years—ask lots of good questions!

Staff were invited and encouraged to “ask anything” at the All Hands on Deck meetings in March, and the questions varied among the four meetings.

We hope the compiled Q&A information is useful to all staff

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Is CHS University just for leaders and supervisors?
In the first year, we will focus on the 77 staff members who have employees reporting to them. In year two, these 77 will continue on with a Year Two curriculum while a second cohort, the next 80 or so, begin Year One curriculum. We may be using a train the trainer model.

Does CHS University include RTC’s? 
Yes.

If someone takes advantage of tuition payments, then quits before 2-3 years, do they have to pay back the tuition? 
No.

For college tuition, is the benefit per class, or how many credits do you have to take?
The benefit is a total dollar amount per month, up to $150.

Could I receive $150 toward my student loans, and also receive $150 if I decide to return to school?
The benefit is for one or the other. You could select loan repayment now, and later change to tuition assistance.

What if you don’t take out loans for school and just pay out of pocket. Will CHS reimburse you?
If you are currently doing this, CHS will provide up to $150/month to help with your current classes.

For student loan reimbursement, does that only apply to full-time employees?
No. Scheduled part-time staff have this available to them as well. Just not relief staff.

Currently several positions do not require a higher ed degree for our residential treatment program. So if we have a higher ed degree, and the job does not require it, do we get higher pay?
At this time, we are not adjusting salary for a higher degree than what is required to perform the job.

Do you foresee education becoming something that CHS values and will be reflected in who we hire and how we pay them?
This is a possibility.

Is there a plan to increase the hourly wage of the high turnover positions?
Yes. We review wages regularly and will do our best to adjust to needs.

Some people don’t have student loans and don’t want to go back to school so can’t take advantage of our new benefits. What’s our incentive to stay employed?
This is a goal we work on every year and will work hard for again. We are working on lots of work culture/environment things to make CHS a great place to work. We ask for grace while we try different things to get more staff to stay, which will hopefully increase your job satisfaction.

How can you value residential workers more than our TAs? School is the hardest time for the kids and trying to get them to do schoolwork is the hardest part.
We absolutely don’t value any one position over others. We are trying some new and creative ways to attract and retain staff. To begin, we are starting with the loan forgiveness/tuition assistance for residential staff. This is not all that we hope to do. We want to help other positions, too.

Full time positions get benefits that are worth a lot. Part time positions don’t get any, so why not pay part timers more since we aren’t paying them benefits?
This is something we could consider.

Will we have a raise this year?
Yes. We are just beginning the budget process for next year.

What percent of our budget goes to the top staff/leaders vs the “working class” or front line staff?
Within our overall budget of almost $22 million, nearly 80% goes to all staff salaries and benefits. Our 15 department heads and senior leaders represent nearly 10% of this total which is much lower than in other industries.

Are there any wage incentives for staff that have maxed out their wage and have been here for many years? We have been loyal and employed here for many years.
We have consistently provided year-end merit bonuses to those employees who did not receive the full merit increase in their wage.  We also have consistently given the full market wage band increases to current staff. 

I have never worked anywhere where we had to wait up to a year to receive an awarded raise. Why do we do that and how is that fair?
Most employers do raises only one time per year. If you received raises more frequently, that was unique, but not standard. We have heard a suggestion to do a two-step wage increase during the first year of employment and will consider that.

Why do we not have a behavior analyst? That could be beneficial to CHS. It would help decrease behaviors at CHS, but also could be contracted out to other schools instead of facilities in MN coming in to help schools in SD.
To date, this is not a position that has been requested by program leadership. However, we can see where this could be very beneficial. This is certainly a position that we can consider for both sides of the state, depending on the staffing priorities of program directors.

Do we or do we not have any specific special needs training? To help better accommodate the areas that need to be met for some of our children, schools have more one-on-one settings. Can we do this?
Our program budgets each include a line item for training. Your program director can use those dollars at their discretion. Please discuss any specific training requests with your program director.

Are therapists considered to be direct care staff?
Yes. Here is a list of all those positions considered direct care staff:

• Adoption Therapist
• Assistant Program Supervisor
• Assistant Unit Director
• Behavioral Specialist
• Brave Beginnings Youth Care Assistant
• Brave Beginnings Youth Care Provider
• Bright Start Therapist
• Child and Family Advocate
• CI Program Supervisor
• Client Support Specialist
• Cultural Relations Coordinator
• Education & Public Awareness Specialist
• Education & Referral Development Specialist
• Family Development Specialist
• Family Development Specialist/Foster Care Therapist
• Forensic Interviewer
• Foster Care Therapist
• Foster Parent Inquiry Coordinator
• Lead Forensic Interviewer
• Lead Team Coordinator
• Medical Assistant
• Mental Health Crisis Therapist
• Mental Health Therapist
• Night Crisis Worker
• Nurse Supervisor
• Nurse
• Parenting Coordinator
• Recreation Coordinator
• Relief Worker
• Residential Therapist
• Residential Treatment Counselor
• Rural Outreach Coordinator
• Shelter Assistant
• Social Work Intern
• Social Worker – Case Manager
• Social Worker – Crisis Intervention
• Teacher Assistant
• Teacher
• Team Coordinator
• Transition Coordinator
• Unit Director
• WWK Adoption Specialist
• Shift Coordinator

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