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CSB visitors to be screened
YOUNGSTOWN
Visitors to Mahoning County Children Services, 222 W. Federal St., will begin undergoing metal-detector security screenings.
The county Children Services Board voted to enter into a $69,927, one-year agreement with the county sheriff’s office to have a deputy perform the screenings on a full-time basis for the safety of the public and the child-welfare agency’s staff.
The agreement will be reviewed annually.
“Times are changing. The threat is real – and it’s elevated,” Randall Muth, CSB executive director, warned the board.
“It is better to start the prevention now before something horrible happens,” he said of the need to keep weapons out of agency offices.
“These are the highest-risk families that we have, and we’re bringing them into our most-inner work areas,” he said.
A fight that recently erupted between two women inside the agency was captured on video, he told the board.
“It’s long overdue,” Brigid Kennedy, board president, said of the new security arrangement.
Buildings containing the county’s courts already have similar security measures, she said.
“We have children and families, and sometimes they’re at their worst in terms of their emotional state” when they visit the agency, Kennedy observed.
In another security enhancement move, Muth also said the agency plans to add walls and doors to separate public meeting rooms from the agency’s nonpublic office areas.
On another matter, Muth preliminarily reported that the agency added $1,457,053 to its reserves at the end of 2016, partly because of savings it achieved by closing its last group home in mid-2016.
That money represents the difference between the agency’s $15,236,471 in revenues and $13,779,418 in expenses last year.
The new reserve amount was added to $2,841,450 already in reserve, and the new total of $4,298,503 in reserves puts the agency in a better financial position as inflation erodes the purchasing power of its local real-estate-tax levy funds, Muth explained.
“That’s part of the 10-year fiscal solvency plan,” he said of the reserve fund accumulation.
The board appointed five people to a new advisory committee: Calvin Jones, a former CSB member; Sister Janet Gardner, executive director of Beatitude House; Mary Jo Truman, a retired CSB social worker and administrator; Dr. Matthew J. Paylo, Youngstown State University counseling department program director; and Andrea Mahone, community activist and president of the Just in Time Employment and Consulting Agency.