Churches not fully involved; cutbacks cited to 'save face'

By Ray Gronberg

gronberg@heraldsun.com; 419-6648

DURHAM -- A program that in 11 years cost Durham County more than $600,000 largely failed to enlist local church congregations in continuing efforts to help poor people who were trying to find jobs, the county's auditor says.

Instead, the 85 families that obtained services from the since-canceled Families First program did so mostly through the personal efforts of the program's coordinator, the Rev. Pebbles Lindsay-Lucas, county Internal Audit Director Richard Edwards told elected officials Monday.

"All the work was supposed to be done by the congregations," but "the program never got to that," Edwards said. "Good things happened, [Lindsay-Lucas] worked hard and diligently through the years, but the program never got to the point where congregations were dealing with large number of clients."

Edwards also found that Department of Social Services officials misled commissioners this spring when they initially chalked up the decision to cancel the program to budget cutbacks.

The claim followed discussions between DSS and Lindsay-Lucas' employer, Durham Congregations in Action.

DSS leaders told the group they "had concerns about contract performance but would attribute the reasons to budget concerns only" in public, reasoning that Lindsay-Lucas "could be adversely affected if performance issues surfaced," Edwards said in his written report.

In July when, questioned by commissioners, officials conceded the federal government hadn't trimmed the grants DSS used to pay for Families First.

At that point, they also admitted they didn't think the program had been working well.

The explanation didn't sit well with elected officials in July, and the memory of it still rankled Commissioner Joe Bowser on Monday.

"I don't see how a government can be run that way," Bowser said, maintaining that elected officials need accurate information from the county staff. "The next time when you cut a job off, are you going to say it was funding when it was [really] performance?"

Social Services Director Gerri Robinson -- who took over the department in September, two months after commissioners ordered the audit -- said she and her staff would "treat this as a lesson very well learned."

In the future, "we will communicate the actual reason," she promised, adding that in the case of Families First, "people were attempting to save face."

Sammy Haithcock, who was head of DSS until his retirement in June, said Monday that he had not been involved in any discussions about presenting a public explanation vs. the actual reasons the program ended. He said those discussions could have taken place at a different level.

Haithcock said the program had been a good idea, but was expensive. When staff evaluated the contract, they considered the fact that it was a substantial cost and not a lot of people had been served.

County officials funded Families First starting in 1998 as part of their response to the federal government's decision to require welfare recipients to find work two years after first receiving aid checks.

The rationale for reaching out to congregations was that aid recipients looking for jobs would need counseling and other types of help to steady themselves. Church groups, Families First advocates reasoned, could provide that if someone could recruit and match them with specific families.

That was supposed to be Lindsay-Lucas' job, and through the years she found "approximately 77 entities including congregations, individuals and volunteers" to help.

But the program never met "its primary objective of having a wide participation by congregations," Edwards said in his oral summary for commissioners.

What's more, DSS officials found they had trouble keeping track of the program.

Partly that was because they didn't write their contracts with Durham Congregations in Action tightly enough, and partly because they relied on that group to supervise Lindsay-Lucas.

Edwards noted that the county tightened its oversight of the program in 2007, adding reporting requirements and changing the person assigned to keep an eye on it.

Lindsay-Lucas told the auditor she felt DSS had acted against her "out of personal bias" and that "when relationships were good," things like written goals and promises "were not an issue."

But the auditor -- who said communication between the key players "was not good through the entire period" -- maintained that documented goals and performance is no mere nicety.

"The state expects continuous evaluation of program effectiveness and the federal government, the source of [funding], expects it as well," he said in his written report, adding that DSS was within its rights to terminate Families First.

Commissioners and County Manager Mike Ruffin said contracts with other groups likely suffer from similar oversight problems. "I hate to say it, but all of us have an opportunity to learn at your expense," Ruffin told Robinson and her staff.

Bowser and Commissioners Chairman Michael Page also said they still see a need for a program that links the poor with church groups.

"In our faith communities we have lots of resources ... and we're not utilizing those kinds of resources," said Page, who's also pastor of Antioch Baptist Church. "Regardless of what happened here, we have to turn the tide around."