The restructuring of Scioto County Children Services has been in the works for over a year, according to County Commissioner Bryan Davis.
Davis said he spent a lot of time thinking about the decision to strip the Children Services Board of power and move the agency under the control of Jobs and Family Services. “I’ve been pretty quiet just out of sheer sadness. Having been on this board for over seven years and seeing the process of decay in our society with the opioid epidemic and seeing the tentacles that has created.”
The commissioner said he wrote down a list of reasons which he read aloud at Thursday’s commissioners’ meeting. Under the new plan, CPS Director Jason Mantell will report directly to the local JFS Director.
Davis said moving the SCCS under the control of JFS has been a possibility for over a year, ever since the two agencies agreed to find ways to work together more effectively last year. He pointed out that both agencies report to the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services.
At the same time, the Commissioners funded an additional CPS attorney who answered to the Scioto County Prosecutor. He said the goal was for that attorney to become the legal representative for the agency instead of the CPS Board attorney. This happened at the same time the commissioners helped fund a Special Victims Unit through the prosecutor’s office to investigate crimes against children and other vulnerable persons. “Why did we do all of this? When you run a business, you plan ahead. We saw the potential, that without additional funding, this day would come. We didn’t want it to come to this. But here we are.”
He said Scioto County Children Services began dipping into their carryover funds in 2020.
Davis said the agency was bleeding caseworkers and needed additional people to handle the increase in children in their care. “We nearly doubled in two years. It was an insurmountable amount of money. Would the public prefer we not remove children from dangerous situations?”
Davis blamed the fallout of the opioid epidemic and the state’s emphasis on the reunification of families at all costs and called for a change in state laws.
He said commissioners would still very much rely on the CPS board for advice and suggestions, even though they would no longer have administrative power.