Job and Family Services hopes to replace ramshackle building

The agency has little more than half the space it's supposed to have, a consultant says.
By NORMAN LEIGH
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
LISBON -- When new staff members join Columbiana County's Department of Job and Family Services, director Eileen Dray-Bardon offers them a piece of advice as she guides them through the agency's maze of offices.
Leave a trail of bread crumbs wherever you go; you might need it to find your way out, Dray-Bardon tells them.
It's not much of an exaggeration.
Older building
One of the county's largest agencies, employing about 150 people, job and family services is in a nearly 60-year-old ramshackle brick building off Chestnut Street in downtown Lisbon.
"It's a shabby place," Dray-Bardon said.
The structure's condition and lack of space have county officials scouting for a new location for the agency, which handles welfare, child support, child abuse cases and other chores. About 180 people visit the agency daily.
The list of complaints regarding the county-owned structure, a former grocery store, is a long one.
Dozens of offices are linked by a tangle of narrow corridors that resemble the intricate trails of an ant farm.
Many walls are clad in the cheap paneling popular in the 1960s and 70s. Thousands of files are shoehorned into hallways and niches.
Many problems
The building's interior is so chopped up that eight furnaces and air-conditioning units are needed to heat and cool the structure.
Gas and electric bills totaled $75,505 in 2002.
The ceiling leaks. Fumes from an attached maintenance garage seep into office space. Recently, an entry door tumbled from its frame and onto an employee, who escaped injury.
"I deal daily with, 'What part of the building is broken now?'" Dray-Bardon said.
Then there's the privately owned bowling alley, located upstairs in the two-story building. The rumbling of bowling balls can be heard overhead as employees attend to their tasks.
There's not enough room to work, Dray-Bardon said. "The crowded conditions are a constant challenge," she added.
A consultant has told the agency it needs about 40,000 square feet. It has about 24,000.
Space is so scarce that, weather permitting, sensitive supervised visits among parents and their children in foster care are conducted outside.
The confidentiality necessary for many of the agency's operations is hard to achieve, Dray-Bardon said.
Security also is a concern. The building has 14 entrances.
"Employees are very fearful that we don't have control over who gets in the building," Dray-Bardon said.
In a bid to land federal aid to improve the situation, county officials recently invited U.S. Congressman Ted Strickland, D-6th, Lisbon, to tour the structure.
"It obviously has severe limitations," said Strickland, who noted he has searched for federal funding assistance for a new building. So far, he's had no luck, but he intends to keep trying, he said.
"It's totally inadequate," Commissioner President Jim Hoppel said of the building.
Wants to build
Hoppel is proposing that the county try to build a structure to house the agency in the next two years for an estimated $4 million.
One possible location would be near the new county municipal court to be constructed along Saltwell Road in Center Township, north of Lisbon, Hoppel said.
The county could try to land grants from state and federal sources to reduce the cost and take out a low-interest federal loan for the balance.
To pay off the loan, the county would rely on rent paid by job and family services, which gets such funding from state and federal funds.
The agency pays $8,270 a month to the county for rent and utilities.
In a new, larger office, the agency could be authorized to pay up to $40,000 monthly from state and federal sources, Dray-Bardon said.