Willing to complain, unwilling to pay more taxes

Survey asks who's to blame
Sheila McLaughlin, Cincinnati Enquirer, Sept. 15, 2006
Metro, pg 1B

HAMILTON - Marcus Fiesel would be alive today if the child protection agency had done more to check on him, said a majority of Butler County residents surveyed since the boy's August death and the arrest of his foster parents.


The poll, released Thursday by an organization that promotes mental health issues statewide, also suggested that county commissioners needed to take tighter control of an independent board that's supposed to oversee the children services agency.

"If there is one thing that comes through loud and clear from this survey it is that the public expects the county commissioners to play a proactive role in driving improvements in the child protection system," Rawnica Dillingham, executive director of the Hamilton-based Mental Health Matters Inc., told county commissioners.

"The public does not believe that the commissioners' responsibilities end with the mere appointment of board members and neither do I."

The survey showed:

65 percent of respondents said Marcus' death could have been avoided with better supervision by the county children services agency.

83 percent felt all records about Marcus' death should be made public.

81 percent think county commissioners are obligated to overhaul the existing children services board.

50 percent said they had a favorable opinion of the Butler County Children Services Board; 40 percent were unfavorable, with 10 percent expressing no opinion.

60 percent said they would support the renewal of a tax levy for child protection, but 53 percent were against any additional taxes for children services.

Respondents were evenly matched - at 44 percent - on whether they would consider becoming foster parents or volunteering to help children. The remainder was undecided.

The telephone survey, with a 3.4 percentage point margin of error, gauged the opinions of 292 registered Butler County voters.

It was conducted last week after Marcus' death touched off a state investigation into the county's screening of foster parents and monitoring of children in the agency's care.

Commissioner Mike Fox has stepped up his continuing push for reform at the Butler County Children Services Board as well as stronger oversight by the agency's commission-appointed board.

Commissioners, however, are split on how much control they should take of the agency.

Fox has asked the agency to beef up caseworkers' investigative skills, and improve technology and a computerized filing system so the staff can get up-to-date information on children and foster parents and share it.

"You've got to dance with the gal that's there," Fox said of the oversight board. "My first hope is that I can get this board to buy into these changes in earnest.

Marcus, a developmentally delayed 3-year-old Middletown boy, was in the custody of the Butler County Children Services Board but placed in a foster home through Lifeway For Youth, a private agency the county pays to place and monitor foster children. Two-thirds of foster children in Butler County are placed in homes through private agencies.

Authorities said Marcus died after foster parents Liz and David Carroll Jr. on Aug. 4 left the child bound with strapping tape in a closet for two days while they went to a family reunion out of town.

The couple is jailed in Clermont County on murder and other charges after their live-in girlfriend told police what happened.