§ 2-2-257. Needs assessment; establishment of funding priorities.
(a)
The advisory board shall submit to the board of county commissioners by January 30 of each year an annual report which will be made available to the public and include a plan for children's services. For fiscal year 1991-92, the plan shall be submitted as soon as reasonably possible. The plan shall include a needs assessment indicating the advisory board's determination of the needs of children indicating the most serious problems affecting or with a high degree of potential for harm to individual children as well as Manatee County's most serious problems by apparent number of children affected. The plan will also identify the advisory board's preliminary determination of the nature and types of programs and services that should receive funding from the dedicated millage.
In developing the plan for children's services the advisory board shall solicit such reports, data and materials from local, state or national agencies, both public and private, in an effort to avoid duplication of work, expedite the work of the advisory board and confirm or rebut the findings of such agencies. The advisory board may conduct such hearings and provide for investigations including but not limited to surveys and interviews of experts, professionals, agencies and individuals, including children and parents, as may be necessary and practical to develop the plan for children's services.
The advisory board shall include in its investigations the collection of information and data pertinent to the problems of families in need of services and the methods to the procedures for implementing plans of services designed to preserve to the highest extent appropriate and feasible the integrity of the family unit including those procedures and strategies that distinguish the problems of truants, runaways and children beyond the control of their parents from programs and services designed to meet the needs of abandoned, abused and neglected children.
(Ord. No. 91-42, § 7, 7-9-91)