Health and human services board member resigns

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Health and human services board member resigns

Jerry DeWeese (second from right) takes his oath of office with other board members. Within the hour, he would resign the position. Holly Kays photo

The tension that surrounded Jackson County commissioners’ decision to merge its health and social services departments wasn’t hard to sense when the new consolidated board gathered for its first meeting Monday, June 11.

Just an hour after taking his oath of office to serve on the Jackson County Health and Human Services Board, longtime Board of Health member Jerry DeWeese announced his resignation from the new board, with the remaining board members then voting to request a letter from commissioners explaining exactly why the consolidation was necessary in the first place.

“These two old boards (Social Services Board and Board of Health) acted similar in my mind to a functioning machine,” DeWeese said as the meeting drew to a close. “They took input from the community, from the state, from the commissioners, and developed outputs — rules, regulations, services. And we continuously took feedback, made changes to optimize our performance. Again I sat through this meeting with an open mind, trying to understand why we’re making changes. I can’t find those. What is coming out of this consolidation is a waste of time.”

DeWeese continued to say that the consolidation was proving to be a “distraction” for county staffers whose focus should be on the delivery of services, and that the new department head position created to oversee the existing directors of health and social services would simply be a “waste of tax dollars.”

“I cannot see what we need to do differently, because I don’t have a good direction on what we weren’t doing to begin with,” he said. “I would like to resign this seat, and I wish this group the best of luck in your path forward.”

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Explanation wanted

Following DeWeese’s announcement, fellow board member Dr. David McGuire made the motion for the board to request a formal letter of explanation from commissioners.

“You’re asking us to devote a significant amount of time and emotional energy to this effort, and I’m OK with that,” said McGuire. “But I think they do owe us an explanation in writing as to why they thought this was the way to go. “I think that’s valid.”

McGuire’s motion eventually passed 8-3, with Dr. Tom Turrentine, Dr. Cliff Faull, Dana Tucker, Kim Woodard, David McGuire, Kim Cowan, Charles Wolfe and Sue Evans in favor and Mickey Luker, Kathy Farmer and Dr. Bill Mobley opposed.

Before McGuire’s motion, Mobley had told the board that as a retired surgeon, he’s seen that there’s sometimes a disconnect between the institutions caring for a person’s physical wellbeing and those seeing to their social wellbeing.

“I can see a real value to having a social services component to a medical services board, if you will, combined,” he said. “Because it will make a more comprehensive, centrally-based collection of services to be given to the people in this county who need it. I came in here with a little bit of skepticism about the nature of this bureaucracy myself, but having heard everybody speak I think it will be a good thing.”

County Manager Don Adams, meanwhile, cautioned the board that any letter coming from commissioners would likely only repeat the reasons already given, which the majority of the board seems to have found unsatisfactory.

“From a staff standpoint, where I’m at is the board made the decision and we are professionally trying to move forward as best we can,” said Adams. “For them to come back and give us a letter, I’d hate to set us in a position right now off the bat of some kind of confrontation between this board and the commissioners, when the reality is we’re just trying to move forward.”

Consolidation has been a topic of discussion ever since the 2016 elections, when Commissioners Mickey Luker and Ron Mau were elected, joining incumbent Commissioner Charles Elders to form a Republican majority. The Republican commissioners were interested in merging the county’s health and social services departments, something allowed through a 2012 state law.

In March 2017, experts on the topic from the University of North Carolina School of Government came to Jackson County to discuss the ins and outs of that law. While Commissioner Boyce Deitz and Chairman Brian McMahan, both Democrats, were against consolidation from the beginning, Luker, Mau and Elders wanted to move forward.

During a Jan. 29 public hearing, every one of the 11 people who spoke opposed consolidation, citing concerns about increased potential for political influence in the delivery of services, a monumental learning curve for volunteer board members and the futility of the effort, as the original structure was already functioning well. Nevertheless, commissioners voted 3-2 to move forward with consolidation. During their May 7 meeting, they approved nominations for the new consolidated board — that board has a variety of statutory powers but does not have hire/fire authority over the director, as the old boards did — and a position description for a yet-to-be-hired director of the consolidated department. The position will carry a salary of $74,000 to $145,000, plus benefits.

Understanding intent

The agenda for the June 11 meeting was mostly organizational, with items including introductions, oaths of office, election of the board chair and vice chair and various informational discussions. However, the meeting quickly went off-script, with several board members pressing Adams for answers on why the consolidation had happened like it did.

“Option 1 is what we are currently working under. Explain to me why we took Option 2,” said Turrentine as Adams explained the various organizational options allowed under state law.

“What was chosen by the board was the option we’re currently under, and that option was to create a vertical line through the county manager and all the way to the county commissioners and turn this agency into a department,” said Adams. “The reality is it still has a lot of elements that are very similar to the old system ... This is not a debate for me at this point. Staff at this point is just trying to move forward.”

“I’m not trying to debate it. I’m trying to understand it,” replied Turrentine. “I’ve served 20-plus years on the Board of Health and I wasn’t aware there was any issue with the vertical operation of the Board of Health and or the state commission and mandates. I understand this is an option that the state has given us the option to do. I’m just trying to understand why that option was taken.”

“They’re looking at more of a vertical chain. They’re also looking — as we proceed forward under this consolidated agency concept we may or may not find places of consolidation as far as functions, internal functions. At this point, that is the reason,” said Adams.

“I’m kind of with Dr. Turrentine,” added Faull. “The Board of Commissioners said it’s in the best interest of the county, but the reason behind that isn’t because there’s a problem with quality, a problem with efficiency, which would be return on the dollar, making the budget better or improving the product to the public. It would be helpful for the board to know what they have in mind if they’re charging us with taking care of what they want done.”

Turrentine jumped back in to say that he sees consolidation as just adding “another tier of bureaucracy” and asked again why the shakeup was necessary.

“I can respect your position and your need to stay neutral,” said DeWeese, addressing Adams. “I’m like Dr. Turrentine, just trying to understand why we chose Option 2 over Option 1, and I understand you can’t address that. Mr. Luker, can you help us understand?”

“I’d have to go back and look at a lot of notes, Jerry (DeWeese),” said Luker, the county commission’s representative on the board. “I can just say we went down through it and ultimately looked at the perspective of where we wanted to go and the reporting levels of it, and how it would report, and ultimately to the county manager and then to commissioners. That was the best option out of the three.”

In a follow-up interview, Luker said he thought it was “fair” of the board to ask commissioners for a letter of explanation but that ultimately the board needs to be “progressive and start moving forward.” While he recognizes the consolidation is unpopular with some, he didn’t hear anything at the meeting that’s caused him to rethink his position.

“At the end of the day, our major intent was two major things,” he said. “That was to have a vertical line of command and not at all saying that either one of our departments aren’t doing an exceptional job, but looking at ways that we can improve the services for our most vulnerable citizens.”

Hiring a director

A new director for the consolidated Department of Health and Human Services will be in place in September if all goes according to plan, County Manager Don Adams told the Health and Human Services Board June 11.

The state has approved creation of the position, which will have a salary range of $74,000 to $145,000 plus benefits, and the county has started advertising it. Applicants must have a master’s degree in human services, public health, social services, public administration or a related field plus three years of experience in public sector management work, or a bachelor’s degree and five years of public sector management in one of those fields.

Before consolidation, the health and social services boards were responsible for hiring and firing departmental directors, but under the new structure the county manager will make the hire with the advice and consent of the health and human services board. Adams assured the board that he, Health Director Shelley Carraway and Social Services Director Jennifer Abshire will be working to develop a fair and collaborative process for choosing the new director.

“It’s important to have stakeholders involved in this process,” he said. “If you wish for somebody to be successful, the reality is it’s not just board members. It’s stakeholders. It’s the people who this person is going to interact with on a daily basis.”

Adams said he’d want input from the board to select the director and devise the process but that it would be “very difficult” to do with a 15-member board. The more likely scenario is that the board’s chair and vice chair will enter those discussions on behalf of the board as a whole.

The board unanimously voted to appoint Kathy Farmer as its chair and Charles Wolfe as its vice chair. Farmer previously served on the Board of Health starting in January 2016, while Wolfe served on the Social Services Board with a term starting in June 2016.

The board will meet regularly at 6 p.m. on the second Tuesday of each month, with its next meeting set for Tuesday, July 10.

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