Garfield County commissioners on Sept. 8 approved the department of human services’ request to fill a supervisor position in its child-welfare division by promoting an internal candidate.

Human services staff said the position vacancy resulted from a personnel action and that the role is funded 100% through the child-welfare block grant, including benefits. The department said it intends the hire as an internal promotion and will post the opening internally rather than externally.

Commissioners used the vote to discuss the county’s wider hiring-freeze and budget posture: staff explained that the county is not maintaining a separate bucket of frozen funds, but rather has left vacant positions unfunded in the general ledger as part of broader deficit management. The human services director cautioned that many child-welfare positions are funded by federal and state revenue and that vacancy-related savings do reduce the department’s revenue draw but do not represent full county savings.

Commissioners approved the promotion and noted that other vacancies and staffing requests may return to the board for supplemental funding or approval as the 2026 budget process continues.

What’s next: human services will post the supervisor opening internally and proceed with hiring procedures for a promoted candidate; the board will consider other vacancy/funding requests as needed during budget deliberations.