Supervisors Appoint Interim Director as Social Services Chief

Following months of closed-door discussion and a split vote Tuesday, county supervisors have selected Barbara Fitzgerald to serve as the new director of the county’s $125-million social services agency.

Fitzgerald, 51, is a 28-year county employee who has served the past six months as the agency’s interim director.

Supervisors John K. Flynn, Susan Lacey and Kathy Long picked Fitzgerald from a statewide candidate pool that had been narrowed to five finalists to lead the welfare agency through a critical time of reform.

“When I was in the Army, you supported people who earned their stripes, and that’s Barbara,” Flynn said.

Supervisors Frank Schillo and Judy Mikels, who dissented, did not return phone messages Tuesday afternoon.

“It’s a challenge, but one that I’m up to, one that I’m looking forward to and one that I think I have the support of the employees to do a good job,” Fitzgerald said after the appointment.

Fitzgerald will receive an annual salary of $106,496 and will assume her new role by the end of the week, county Administrator Lin Koester said.

“We had really good candidates. She had tough competition but she’s up to the challenge,” Koester said. “We’ll work together very well.”

Fitzgerald, better known as “B. J.” to her friends and colleagues, started her career with the county government as an accounting whiz, rising through the ranks since taking her first job with the auditor’s office in 1969.

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She has served as the agency’s interim director since May when James E. Isom, who led the agency for 22 years, resigned following months of closed-door meetings with supervisors over his job performance.

Supervisors questioned Isom’s ability to handle the impact of sweeping welfare reform legislation set to take effect in January, while employees of his department criticized him for a lack of leadership in resolving some of the agency’s chronic problems.

In particular, it drew criticism for its handling of the Joselin Hernandez case, returning the 2-year-old to her parents, only to see her die within weeks from blows to the stomach. Her parents are now on trial for murder in the June 1996 death.

“I feel B. J. certainly has the years of institutional experience as to the operations and challenges of the Public Social Services Agency,” Long said. “That weighed heavily in my mind as to voting in favor of supporting her than just making a change in leadership for change’s sake.”

Although she would have liked to have seen a unanimous vote on the director, Long said the split vote presents an even greater challenge to Fitzgerald to do good work.

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“I believe she has the passion, the knowledge and experience, and that certainly helps us as we’re making such terrific changes in welfare reform,” Long said.

Flynn, the board’s chairman, said that not only has Fitzgerald proven that she can lead the county through welfare reform, but that over the years and as interim director, she has shown a caring heart toward children in handling challenges in child welfare and foster care.

“Barbara has great abilities,” he said. “She has good experience. She’s knowledgeable, and no one understands the fiscal part of social services better than Barbara.”

Although rank-and-file employees in the agency had been highly critical of Isom, many of the county’s 800 social workers and eligibility workers had been lobbying supervisors in recent weeks on Fitzgerald’s behalf.

Employees within the agency have praised Fitzgerald as the polar opposite of Isom’s elusive and unapproachable style, said Ellyn Dembowski, Service Employees International Union Local 998 deputy director.

Fitzgerald, she said, has held meetings with employees and showed concern for their well-being, holding safety training sessions to help teach child protective officers how to handle the often-dangerous situation of removing neglected or abused children from homes, and placing cellular telephones in their hands.

She has also reached out to the community, Dembowski said, holding meetings with foster parents and group homes.

“With welfare reform coming and all the changes, it’s going to be good to have someone with that kind of consistency and continuity,” she said. “We were just saying this morning that the ship seemed like it was just listing there without someone at the helm.”

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Fitzgerald said that’s just her style, but that after six months as the temporary head of the department, she is ready to make some permanent changes.

“I’m open to people, I discuss things with people and I think I’m fair,” she said. “With 900 employees all going in different directions, that’s a challenge in and of itself.”

After her stint in the auditor’s office, Fitzgerald spent two years crunching numbers in the county executive’s office before taking a job as an accounting technician in the Public Social Services Agency. Her work there led to an appointment as deputy director of the agency in 1986.

“There probably isn’t anyone that has the kind of fiscal and financial experience in the social services area that she does,” said Helen Reburn, the agency’s chief deputy director, who has worked with Fitzgerald over the past decade.