Guilford County Department of Social Services Director Robert Williams resigned Monday morning during a three-hour closed session by the DSS board. The meeting was called in the wake of Guilford’s food stamp backlog, which employees worked over the weekend to resolve, costing the county thousands of dollars in overtime pay.
The Rhino reports:
About 10 minutes after the board went into closed session, a woman arrived at the door and taped a piece of paper over the door window of the small conference room to keep anyone from seeing inside the room. The closed session was held on the third floor of the building.
Shortly before 9 a.m., Guilford County Security Director Jeff Fowler told the Rhino Times reporter – the only reporter there – to move farther away from the door since the Rhino was “within earshot.”
At some point between 9 a.m. and 9:50 a.m., Williams must have gone into the room, because at 9:50 a.m., Williams left the room carrying a briefcase. He got on an elevator.
At 10:06 a.m., a board member came out of the closed session and told a social services employee to call security.
She made an announcement over the DSS public address system: “Security, please report to the third floor; security, please report to the third floor.”
Question is what happens next —the Rhino earlier reported that the Board of Commissioners is considering combining DSS and the Department of Public Health “into one giant Guilford County department of human services that would have a budget of over $100 million and about 990 employees.”
