Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Human Social Services Exec Director topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Butler County commissioners back moving forward with proposed executive director for human and social services
Summary
County leaders discussed creating an executive director of Human and Social Services to coordinate housing, social and countywide human services; commissioners directed staff to place the proposal on next week’s agenda for a formal vote.
Butler County commissioners on April 8 heard a formal proposal to create an executive director of Human and Social Services who would coordinate countywide human, social and housing programs and was directed to appear on the board’s agenda for a vote next week.
The proposal would reclassify the current executive director of Job and Family Services (JFS) into a new executive director role responsible for coordinating JFS, Children’s Services, OMJ (OhioMeansJobs) and CSEA functions while working with local, state and federal partners to align housing and social-service resources. The presenter said the role would establish performance measures, track outcomes and produce periodic reports on program performance.
County officials said the position is intended to improve coordination among existing providers and government entities rather than act as a caseworker or single-point homeless services coordinator. “This position is not a homeless coordinator,” one presenter said; rather, it would inventory and optimize existing resources and recommend integrated models to address homelessness and other social needs.
Commissioners discussed next steps and the probable candidate. One commissioner said they had spoken with “Julie Gilbert” about the concept and that Gilbert already has relationships with social-service organizations. Supporters said the county has convened two countywide housing summits and that community stakeholders favor a single coordinating position to unite fragmented services.
Not all commissioners framed the role identically. Some cautioned they did not want JFS to become the default homelessness provider; others said JFS contains significant resources that could be leveraged if a cross-agency leader were empowered to connect them. Commissioners asked for organizational charts and a staffing model showing how the reclassification would create downstream vacancies and suggested a week to provide additional questions to the administrator.
There was no final policy vote during the discussion. A commissioner asked the administrator to schedule the proposal for the board agenda next Monday so the commission can consider it formally. Staff acknowledged the request and the item was set to return with materials and organizational charts for a decision.
The discussion drew repeated references to Butler County’s strategic initiative work with an external facilitator and to recent Housing and Security and Advocacy Summit meetings; supporters framed the position as a local step to address what they described as a national homelessness problem through better coordination of existing county, municipal and nonprofit resources.
