Seven OH Counties Merge Family Services

7 Ohio counties merge family services offices
Columbus Dispatch, Nov. 6, 2011.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Faced with the problem of what to do about an increasing workload amid state funding cuts, seven Ohio counties have decided to merge the offices of their Job and Family Services departments in an effort to more efficiently handle more cases with limited means.

The collaboration, which begins next month, includes Delaware, Knox, Wood, Hancock, Marion, Morrow and Sandusky counties, according to The Columbus Dispatch.

The ill-named Collabor8 was originally to include Seneca County, which will now wait until after the project gets under way to decide whether to join.

Cases will be handled much like a production line with each employee performing a specific task instead of one worker seeing a case all the way through, interim director in Delaware County Angela Thomas tells the newspaper.

Overwhelmed by rising caseloads, the counties hope they can improve efficiency by 30 percent. The counties estimate that they will have a combined average of 2,500 new applications per month for food stamps, Medicaid and cash assistance, in addition to 3,600 renewals.

Whether the collaboration improves efficiency will be determined by call and hold times and quality-control analysis performed by Bowling Green State University. Only two counties - Wood and Know - would begin collaborating in December, with the other five joining on Jan. 6.

"We're trying to function as one large county," said David Wigent, director of the Wood County office where the idea took shape.

Currently, it takes up to three weeks for an applicant to make an appointment and wait for a caseworker to process the application. Brenda Newell, public-assistance supervisor in Delaware County, says the new system will allow the offices to complete applications nearly instantaneously over the phone.

Wigent acknowledged that a multicounty phone-based operation could seem less personal, but he said the priority is to get people served.

Other counties are also looking at consolidation to boost efficiency.


Vinton, Hocking and Ross counties plan to merge their Job and Family Services departments with a board of representatives from each county overseeing the new combined department.

"Any time counties can share resources and collaborate to bring down administrative costs, we are absolutely supportive," Ohio Department of Job and Family Services spokesman Ben Johnson told the newspaper.