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Delaware County approves supervised-visitation contract amid questions about uncapped payments
Summary
The Delaware County Board of Commissioners approved a contract with Common Ground Family Services LLC for supervised visitation services. Commissioners asked how the county manages payment when contracts have no maximum amounts; Job and Family Services staff described purchase-order increases tied to caseworker needs.
The Delaware County Board of Commissioners on June 2 approved a contract with Common Ground Family Services LLC to provide supervised visitation services for families served by the Delaware County Department of Job and Family Services.
The vote followed a brief presentation and questions about the contract's payment structure. "My name is Jennifer Wattenshade. I'm the business administrator with Job and Family Services. This first item on the agenda for us is a facility that provides us with supervised visitation," said Jennifer Wattenshade, identifying the provider arrangement and current use by a family.
Commissioner Jeff Benton pressed staff on the contract's lack of a maximum payment. "I noticed there's the maximum payment. There's no maximum payment on this contract," Benton said during discussion. Wattenshade explained that visitation needs are variable and the county structures these agreements like placement contracts that have no set maximum because the duration of reunification processes is unpredictable. "So we contract with these providers, and some of them, we don't know if we're gonna have one set of visitation with them, or we don't know if it's gonna be an ongoing to reunify the families," Wattenshade said. She described the administrative process: caseworkers notify supervisors and fiscal staff when visits continue, the county issues a purchase order and submits purchase-order increases to cover invoices as needed.
Wattenshade also described how services are delivered. She said visits generally occur at the provider's facility and are supervised on site; some facilities record visits. "Whenever we have supervised visitation in our facility, we have a camera that records the interactions in case there's something that came up that we need to defend in court," she said.
The board voted to approve Resolution No. 25-418. Commissioners Barb Lewis and Jeff Benton voted in favor; Commissioner Gary Merrill was recorded as absent.
The approval authorizes the county to use the vendor as needed and rely on the described purchase-order process to encumber funds rather than a contract-wide maximum. The contract renewal and use remain subject to caseworker determinations and fiscal approvals.
