George Sheldon must have a lot of friends in Florida. Certainly somebody should ask the folks at Our Kids Miami-Dade/Monroe -- the ones who offered Sheldon their top job at $210,000 a year without much of a search for anybody else -- why they didn't aim a little higher?
Or at least feign concern over the bad PR Sheldon is racking up in a similar post in Illinois.
Maybe Our Kids board members don't do much reading.
Or maybe children are more important in Chicago. All I know is, in the last month the Chicago Tribune has made 69-year-old Sheldon a kind of scary household name in their state, where he heads the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). But in Miami's privately run foster care and adoption agency, nobody cares.
The DCFS job is one the Democratic attorney and politician held with some success under Gov. Charlie Crist -- but that was nearly 10 years ago. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then.
On Tuesday, just days after Sheldon got the Our Kids job offer, there he sat fielding questions during a 90-minute joint House-Senate hearing in Springfield.
Lawmakers and child care experts learned Tuesday that DCFS investigators are overwhelmed by high caseloads and, under Sheldon, are being pressured to quickly close their abuse probes, even when they have not performed basic tasks like contacting police and doctors.
Sheldon -- facing intense criticism about the recent deaths of three children who had been the subject of DCFS investigations, plus the agency's otherwise ongoing failure to protect vulnerable children and their families -- was central to the hearing.
On the one hand, Sheldon pledged to lawmakers he'll put reforms in place -- suggesting he's staying at DCFS to fix the mess. On the other hand, he told Our Kids he really wants to come home to Florida, but he'll give the board an answer at the end of the month -- suggesting he'll walk away from the mess.
In addition, he's dealing with state ethics probes into DCFS contracts that benefited his friends and political cronies in Florida.
Our Kids, meanwhile, has its own problems. And, somehow, it's counting on Sheldon to bail them out.
Beset by turmoil over the suicides of two foster children in their care — and persistent complaints they were overly secretive and unresponsive — three of the Miami nonprofit's top administrators resigned earlier this year.
The board took a lot of heat. At an Our Kids board meeting April 5, members discussed the two deaths, as well as the friction with critics over their lack of transparency.
They discussed plans to hire a PR firm to help the agency craft a more positive message. “We’re doing some things really well,” one member said, “but we’re not telling the story. We’re not particularly good at that, or focused on that.” One of the suicides, captured on video and displayed through social media, “got a lot of media attention all over the world.”
“Why are we only talking about the tragedies?,” an Our Kids board member said at an April 5 board meeting. “Why are we not talking about the positive things?”
Actually, board members, who seemed bound by some kind of cone of silence, weren't talking about anything publicly if they could help it.
Board Chairman Keith Ward -- same guy who gleefully fast-tracked Sheldon through the hiring process while Sheldon was riding the storm in Illinois -- likened bad publicity to a football game. Carol Marbin Miller of The Miami Herald covered it:
"An offensive lineman plays well for most of the game, protecting his quarterback, but surrenders a sack near the end. Then, the player who took down the quarterback 'does a dance' in celebration. “I get it,” Ward said. “In this business there are going to be tragedies.”
Really? Kind of like collateral damage? Forgive me for saying, Mr. Ward, but sometimes those tragedies include a board with all the common sense of Huey, Dewey and Louie.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith
