Children Services 'a mess'
Disband Butler County agency, task force recommends
McLaughlin, Sheila. Cincinnati Enquirer, March 16, 2007, pg. B1.
HAMILTON - The head of the task force charged with deciding how to reform children services in Butler County blasted the agency's volunteer board of directors Thursday in recommending the agency be merged with another county department.
Calling the county child-protective system "a mess," task force chairman Dan Hare called for disbanding the independent eight-member Butler County Children Services Board.
The report spelled out a list of inadequacies at the agency.
Hare specifically criticized the board for offering outgoing Executive Director Jann Heffner a yearlong $110,000 consulting contract.
Heffner, who took the brunt of criticism following the August murder of 3-year-old foster child Marcus Fiesel, tendered her resignation last month.
The resignation is effective April 15.
"Their recent act of proffering a generous consulting contract to the now-resigned executive director, and calling for accelerated payment in the event the board is disbanded, displays blatant disregard for the board's fiduciary obligation to the taxpayers of Butler County," Hare told county commissioners.
Heffner signed the contract in February, but commissioners recently ordered the board chairman, the Rev. Johnny Wade Sloan, not to sign it.
The task force, created in October, prepared a 6-inch-thick report for the commissioners. Its key recommendations include:
-Merging children services into the county Department of Job and Family Services.
-Auditing the agency's programs and finances every two years.
-Delaying any plans to ask voters for tax support.
Officials had been discussing placing a 2-mill renewal levy for children services on the November ballot. But the agency should prove that it is fiscally responsible first, the task force said.
A consultant hired for the task force said the agency was too top-heavy because 28 percent of employees - or 53 of 190 on staff - work as supervisors or in other jobs that do not provide direct services to clients. Shifting some administrators to casework would help reduce high caseloads, the report said.
Children Services board members are expected to respond to the report next Thursday. .
Joe Bride, the board's publicist, said the board will discuss Heffner's consulting contract at a later. "The board was reluctant to lose Jann, but they understood that perhaps if she left it might ease the pain, ease the focus on them as a target. At the same time, they didn't want to lose the benefit of her being able to put her brainpower and muscle behind the key projects," Bride said.
County commissioners took preliminary legal steps Monday to disband the agency's board. Their official decision will be made in about 60 days, Commissioner Greg Jolivette said.
"We cannot get this place on the right path," Commissioner Mike Fox said. "The only way we may be able to get there is to do what we started on Monday - to just go in there and just take it over long enough to simply say this mess is going to be cleaned up."
The debate over reforming the Children Services board is a fallout from the death of Marcus last year. Butler County Children Services had approved Marcus' placement with Liz and David Carroll Jr. through the private foster care agency, Lifeway For Youth. The Carrolls were convicted of his murder last month.
The Children Services board has been bracing for a shake-up.
After Monday's action by county commissioners, the board's private attorney, Bill Seitz, sent a letter asking for minutes of task force meetings and drafts of the final report. The letter accuses the task force of meeting in illegal executive sessions.
Seitz, a Republican state representative from Green Township, also has asked David Fierst, the managing attorney for the Ohio Attorney General's Office, to review the task force's actions.
Butler County Commissioner Mike Fox says a takeover may be the only way to clean up the Children Services agency.
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