The Rhino’s Scott Yost digs further into problems at Guilford County Department of Social Services, which came into full public view with last month’s food stamp backlog.
Interim DSS director Myra Thompson sounds like she’s doing her best to clean up the mess.
That said:
One Guilford County DSS employee told the Rhino Times this week that the problems in the department go very deep and this latest crisis is just one manifestation of those issues.
“No management manages,” the employee wrote in an email. “No policy is completely followed. People are authorized benefits that are not thoroughly evaluated. Workers have to keep authorizing clients that have not been reviewed fully. People aren’t denied automatically because they would appeal wrongful denials.”
The employee went on to state that in the past there has been favoritism in promotions and that some eligible clients for services have been denied and forgotten about, while other applicants weren’t vetted properly before receiving benefits. The employee also said that DSS employees have been instructed not to talk to the media.
County Manager Marty Lawing adds “we’re still trying to pinpoint exactly how things happened like they did.”
