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Murphy – The Cherokee County Board of Commissioners plans to re-establish a five-member, independent board to oversee the Department of Social Services.
Commissioners have scheduled a public hearing to receive public input about the board during the regularly scheduled meeting at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 3.
Commissioners have served as the DSS board since disbanding the previous board and taking on the responsibility themselves in September 2018.
“The circumstances no longer exist that warrant the need for the Cherokee County Board of Commissioners to continue its role as the Cherokee County DSS Board,” the board said in a resolution read by Commissioner Ben Adams on Dec. 5. “The best interests of Cherokee County, and the best interests of the Cherokee County Department of Social Services, would be better served by an independent and distinct DSS board.”
The board unanimously passed the resolution.
The N.C. Department of Health & Human Services took over child welfare services in Cherokee County in March 2018 in an unprecedented step. The state takeover occurred because Cherokee County social workers for years had taken children from parents without judicial authority, using a document called a “custody and visitation agreement.”
In September 2018, the DSS board hired a new director, Amanda McGee, who remains in charge today. Commissioners also dissolved the previous DSS board at the time, via a 4-1 vote, and installed themselves in that role. Commissioner Cal Stiles was the dissenting vote at the time, calling the move a “power grab.”
Twenty-six lawsuits were filed against the county in 2018 and 2019, stemming from the department’s use of custody and visitation agreements to place children outside of their parents’ homes without court approval. Commissioners unanimously approved a $48.5 million settlement – including $24.25 million not covered by insurance – on June 29 to resolve more than 20 remaining lawsuits stemming from the practice.
The settlement added an additional eight cents added to the county’s millage rate this year – an increase expected to last nearly a decade. Cherokee County agreed to pay $4 million of the settlement by Feb. 15, 2023, then pay about $2.9 million per year beginning in July 2024 and ending in 2031.
Former county attorney Scott Lindsay still faces 20 felony charges for his role in separating children from their families. Former DSS director Cindy Palmer pleaded guilty in October 2021 to one count of felony obstruction of justice, receiving one year of unsupervised probation.
Commissioner Dan Eichenbaum served on the Cherokee County DSS board before the county took over that function.
“This move has really been made good and necessary because the staff, director, and legal people at DSS have really picked up the ball and run with it,” Eichenbaum said. “I could not have imagined, after the disaster from three years ago, the current people running that agency have done a fantastic job putting that agency on sound footing.
“They are really to be congratulated. It’s because of that we can now have an independent board, not a commission board.”
Commissioners have demanded at least $53 million from the State of North Carolina as reimbursement for a multimillion dollar lawsuit settlement. In a resolution passed Sept. 19, the board contended the Department of Health & Human Services “failed in its duties of training and oversight in regard to Custody and Visitation Agreements” previously used by Cherokee County DSS.