What's at stake?
The Fresno County Supervisors chair and vice chair will co-sponsor a request for an outside, independent audit of the department of social services following concerns from a whistleblower shared at a meeting last month.
A pair of Fresno supervisors agreed to entertain an independent audit of the county’s department of social services following concerns shared by a whistleblower at a board meeting last month.
The comments led to a private conversation last week between a handful of county leaders and Lorraine Ramirez, the whistleblower, who said the county is allowing too many foster children to be reunited with abusive guardians. The meeting included Fresno County Supervisors Garry Bredefeld and Luis Chavez.
Bredefeld, who also serves as the board chair, told Fresnoland on Friday that the two parties had an “excellent meeting,” and that Ramirez shared enough information to at least have both supervisors bring an independent audit of the department from an outside agency before the board for a vote at their next meeting.
“They have a very difficult job,” Bredefeld said of the county’s department of social services, “but the bottom line for all of us is to ensure the safety and security of the kids that the county is responsible for.”
Ramirez shared her concerns about the department of social services at a board meeting last month.
Specifically, she said she felt too many children were being returned to unsafe guardians and households, leading to the kids being “reabused” and “reneglected” by their caretakers.
Following her comments last month, she said she received “a frenzy” of correspondences from current and former county workers, some of which she said she used to help substantiate her claims and convince the county leaders to initiate an independent audit during her meeting last week.
“They asked me, ‘what can I do’ or ‘how can I help,” Ramirez said.
Chavez serves on the county’s foster care oversight committee, and is a foster parent himself. He said that though that’s given him some background on how the system works, it pales in comparison to the decades of experience Ramirez has — a contributing factor in him taking her complaints seriously.
He told Fresnoland that the audit shouldn’t be viewed as a punishment of the foster care system, but instead as an opportunity to “scrutinize” established practices.
“I think we should never be afraid of outside eyes coming in and looking at not just what we’re doing,” Chavez said, but also on how to improve it.”
The pair of supervisors are co-sponsoring a request for an independent audit that will be brought before the board for approval at their next regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, April 7.
The board will meet before then on Monday for a special meeting to rename the Cesar Chavez holiday after a New York Times investigation found that he raped and sexually assaulted several women, including minors.
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