53-2-304. Staff of public assistance program. (1) (a) The staff in each local office of public assistance must consist of at least one qualified staff worker. The department of public health and human services shall hire and supervise all public assistance staff. A fully qualified person must be employed by the department pursuant to subsections (1)(b) and (1)(c) to supervise the staff.
     (b) In accordance with subsection (1)(a), the department shall establish a hiring committee for the purpose of choosing a qualified applicant to serve as primary supervisor of the public assistance staff. The hiring committee must consist of two county commissioners from the county where the vacancy exists and two representatives or designees of the department. If the primary supervisor is to supervise staff in more than one county, then the county commissioners from each of the counties shall designate two county commissioners to represent the county as members of the hiring committee.
     (c) The department shall screen the applicants who apply for the position of primary supervisor and shall compile a list of the most qualified applicants on the basis of merit. The department shall present the list to the hiring committee. The committee shall rank the applicants in the order it considers most appropriate, and the department shall offer the primary supervisor position to the applicants in the order determined by the hiring committee unless the department is unable to contact a particular applicant after having made a good faith effort. An offer of employment may not be made to a lower-ranking applicant until all available higher-ranking applicants have been offered the primary supervisor position and have either refused the offer or withdrawn their applications.
     (2) Public assistance staff must be paid from state public assistance funds both their salaries and their travel expenses, as provided for in 2-18-501 through 2-18-503, when traveling in the performance of their duties. However, the county shall reimburse the department from county funds for the full amount of the salaries and travel expenses that are not reimbursed to the department by the federal government and for the full amount of the department's administrative costs that are allocated by the department to the county for the administration of public assistance programs and that are not reimbursed to the department by the federal government. Under circumstances prescribed by the department, the reimbursement by the county may be less than the county share as prescribed in this subsection. All other administrative costs of the local office of public assistance must be paid from county funds.
     (3) On or before the 20th day of the month following the month for which the payments to the public assistance staff were made, the department shall present to the county a claim for the required reimbursements. The county shall make reimbursements within 20 days after the presentation of the claim, and the department shall credit all reimbursements to its account for administrative costs.

     History: En. Subd. (b), Sec. 10, Part 1, Ch. 82, L. 1937; amd. Sec. 5, Ch. 129, L. 1939; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 44, L. 1963; amd. Sec. 50, Ch. 121, L. 1974; amd. Sec. 48, Ch. 439, L. 1975; amd. Sec. 19, Ch. 37, L. 1977; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 109, L. 1977; R.C.M. 1947, 71-217; amd. Sec. 11, Ch. 651, L. 1983; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 146, L. 1987; amd. Sec. 75, Ch. 609, L. 1987; amd. Sec. 410, Ch. 546, L. 1995; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 341, L. 1999; amd. Sec. 16, Ch. 571, L. 2001.