Wednesday, January 12, 2000
Time up for children's board to quit or be fired
BY JANICE MORSE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HAMILTON — If members of the embattled Butler County Children Services Board refuse to resign by today's deadline, the county commissioners say they are prepared to remove them or dissolve the board.
“I would hate to see it come to that point,” commission President Chuck Furmon said Tuesday. “I think everyone's trying to make a bigger deal out of this than it really is. It's not unusual to change boards. We've promised some fresh changes and some fresh starts, and that's what we have in mind.”
Mr. Furmon also revealed a previously undisclosed factor in the commissioners' decision to seek the resignations: The board gave bonuses to supervisors right after voters in November approved a 2-mill emergency operating levy.
“That's the kind of thing we're not happy with,” he said, adding that he felt it violated the public's trust. “It's part of the reason we want some new thoughts and new ideas.”
The board has been under fire for being secretive, failing to recruit enough foster parents, taking too long to investigate cases and being unresponsive to grievances. In previous interviews, board Chairman Bob Cottrell said the agency has tried to respond to calls for change.
County Commissioner Michael A. Fox said he thought that as of Tuesday, two of nine board members had resigned, and “if we have to dissolve the board, we'll dissolve the board.”
Some action could come at a meeting set for Thursday, which children's services board members had been asked to attend.
Mr. Cottrell and three other board members didn't return telephone calls seeking comment Tuesday.
Prosecutor John F. Holcomb has issued an opinion stating that the commissioners' Jan. 3 request for the resignations “appears to be inconsistent with” a law that provides staggered terms for such board members.
Mr. Holcomb's Jan. 5 opinion, provided at Mr. Cottrell's request, doesn't call the commissioners' action illegal. But Tuesday, Mr. Holcomb said Ohio law requires individual board members to be dismissed for a just cause.
“You cannot fire the Children Services Board en masse,” he said.
Replied Mr. Fox: “We did not try to fire them en masse. We asked them to resign.”
Mr. Holcomb said the commissioners failed to ask him whether it was OK to ask for resignations.
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