Agencies undergo changes

The JFS director now also oversees the Child Support Enforcement Agency.
By ED RUNYAN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- A year's worth of turnover produced by early retirements and the merger of two agencies has produced a different-looking Trumbull County Department of Job and Family Services.
JFS, the mostly federally and state-funded agency that provides assistance and job training to the county's low-income residents, has lost 22 employees to the buyout between October 2004 and September of this year.
Five of those employees, mostly at the top of the management structure, were not replaced. Seventeen others were replaced with lower-paid workers, said Tom Mahoney, JFS director.
Cutting costs
Mahoney said he has been reducing the number of top managers in the department in the 5 1/2 years since he became director of the agency. But the early retirements will save the agency $623,780 in 2006.
By not replacing the two administrators and two coordinators, the agency will save between $72,000 and $87,000 in salary and benefits on each one.
In addition, Mahoney said he doesn't employ consultants to the degree that a lot of JFS agencies do. Mahoney said the JFS agency employs 181 people at this time, down 33 employees from the 214 who worked there when he became director.
Consolidation
For about a year now, the director has been asking the county commissioners to find a new building that could house JFS (currently housed on South Park Avenue downtown) and the One-Stop job-training facility on West Market Street across from the courthouse.
He originally asked that the Child Support Enforcement Agency in the Stone Building on High Street be in the building also, but he and commissioners later agreed to leave the CSEA in its current location and combine just the JFS with One-Stop.
"It would have been nice," Mahoney said of having the CSEA offices also in the same building, but he says it was not required.
The JFS officially merged with CSEA on Thursday, making Mahoney in charge of both JFS and CSEA. He held meetings all last week with the CSEA staff to discuss the merger. He said the process is going well.
CSEA employees
Mahoney said CSEA has about 60 employees, five of them supervisors. He said the operation is efficient and doesn't appear to need the kind of job cutting that he carried out in JFS. He added that five CSEA workers also took buyouts.
Christina D. Campbell was CSEA director, having worked for the agency 29 years. Her retirement was accepted by county commissioners last week, effective Nov. 30.
Diane Shamrock, who has worked in the CSEA as a supervisor, has been promoted to CSEA administrator and will report to Mahoney.
New building
Last week, county commissioners agreed to purchase the Park-Porter building at the corner of North Park Avenue and Porter Street to house the JFS and One-Stop. It is located less than a block down from the CSEA offices.
The county is having Park-Porter examined for asbestos issues before agreeing to purchase the building. Commissioners also agreed to extend the lease on the current JFS building another 18 months to give it time to renovate Park-Porter.
runyan@vindy.com