COLUMBUS — The leader of Ohio's welfare and family programs resigned Friday in the midst of a scandal involving millions of dollars in illegally withheld child support payments.

        Jacqueline Romer-Sensky, director of the Department of Job and Family Services, gave Gov. Bob Taft a two-paragraph letter announcing she was immediately leaving her Cabinet-level post.

Jacqueline Romer-Sensky gave a news conference on child support payments on Feb. 27. She resigned Friday due to the problems with support checks. (Associated Press photo) | ZOOM |

        “It has been an honor to serve in your administration,” she wrote.

        Her departure follows weeks of growing public outrage over the state agency's problem-plagued child support system.

        Hampered by long delays in sending payments, agency officials recently admitted their new computer system also was illegally holding up to $8 million belonging to thousands of single-parent families across Ohio.

        Last week an advocacy group called the Association for Children for Enforcement of Support sued the agency in an attempt to speed payments. ACES leader Geraldine Jensen said the lawsuit would continue.

        “I hope this means they're going to put leadership in place that will actually solve the problems,” Ms. Jensen said. “We've been expecting something to happen, and that someone would be held accountable for what happened.”

        Mr. Taft will hold a news conference this morning to discuss what happens next. An administration official said Jim Conrad, head of the state Worker Compensation Bureau, will “take a leadership role in shaping the future of the department.”

        Mr. Conrad is the former director of the Department of Employment Services, one of two agencies that merged to create Job and Family Services.

        The governor expressed “great reluctance” over Ms. Romer-Sensky's resignation in a written statement.

        “I appreciate and respect her desire to return to the private sector and spend more time with her family,” the governor said.

        Ms. Romer-Sensky, who made $116,563 a year when she was appointed director of the Department of Human Services in 1999, did not return calls for comment Friday.

        News of her departure came as a surprise to officials in the Hamilton County Department of Human Services. Spokeswoman Mindy Good, however, said Ms. Romer-Sensky had talked about stepping down “for a while.”

        State Sen. Mark Mallory, D-Cincinnati, an outspoken critic of the state's child support woes, said the governor should work harder to fix Job and Family Services.

        “Nobody should think that because she resigned that these problems are going to disappear,” he said. “There is a crisis going on.”

        Kristina Goetz contributed to this report.

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