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Murphy – The Cherokee County Board of Commissioners is demanding at least $53 million from the State of North Carolina as reimbursement for a multimillion-dollar lawsuit settlement.
In a resolution passed Monday night, the board contends the N.C. Department of Health & Human Services “failed in its duties of training and oversight in regard to Custody and Visitation Agreements” previously used by the Cherokee County Department of Social Services.
Twenty-six lawsuits were filed against the county in 2018 and 2019, stemming from the department’s use of such agreements to place children outside of their parents’ homes without court approval. The board 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 8 cents 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.
The board’s resolution states, in part, “the N.C. State Legislature and the Governor of the State of North Carolina shall introduce and make into law sufficient appropriations to reimburse Cherokee County for no less than $53 million to satisfy its debt incurred due to the failure of the NCDHHS to execute its duties under the statues of the State of North Carolina.”
County commissioners have frequently faced harsh public criticism stemming from a perceived lack of oversight over the local department of social services. That scrutiny continued Monday during the public comment portion of the meeting. Board Chair Dan Eichenbaum, who drafted and presented the resolution, said such anger toward the board is misplaced.
“The State of North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services is required by statute to provide training and oversight of all the DSS departments in the state of North Carolina,” Eichenbaum said prior to reading the resolution. “They failed to come out here and do their inspection, they had no inspection reports for at least five or six years during this period of time. The CVAs had been written starting in 2009. ...
“There are five other counties still using CVAs because it was introduced at a seminar run by DHHS 12 or 13 years ago.”
Eichenbaum said he introduced the resolution because the state is protected by sovereign immunity, and therefore cannot be sued in this instance. The board’s resolution has no true legal power on its own, but resolves that state Sen. Kevin Corbin and Rep. Karl Gillespie (both R-Franklin) “introduce and champion legislative action hereinabove described at the next official session of the North Carolina State Legislature.”
Commissioner Gary “Hippie” Westmoreland said he and Eichenbaum spoke with Corbin about the resolution minutes before Monday’s meeting.
“This is absolutely something they can and will do,” Eichenbaum added. “They have no problem with this whatsoever.”
The language passed by the board Monday was the second resolution related to the lawsuit settlement in a span of three weeks.
During the Aug. 29 meeting, the board approved a resolution introduced by Commissioner Cal Stiles, which directed a future board of commissioners to discontinue the 8-cent millage rate increase once the lawsuit settlement is paid off.
Commissioner Jan Griggs requested, and Eichenbaum agreed, to amend Monday’s resolution and include language stating the 8-cent millage rate increase will terminate if the Legislature and governor agree to reimburse the $53 million to Cherokee County.
Early in the meeting, county resident Ray Chambers called the DSS practices and ensuing settlement “an embarrassment.”
“We all ought to be absolutely disgusted with what happened there,” Chambers said. “Mismanagement of an organization usually results in a lot of heads rolling, not just the ones exactly in charge.”
Chambers suggested commissioners have some type of “employee concerns program” that allows employees inside of county departments to provide confidential feedback to commissioners to address concerns “before it becomes a huge problem.”
“There are confidentiality laws, and there’s no way we had any ability as commissioners to have that type of information,” Stiles later replied. “I’m certain, had we had any inclination that there was any type of issue of that nature, that we would have taken action.
“But we were as blindsided as everyone else when this occurred, and we had no way of knowing because they can’t give us that type of information when they place the children.”