Eight months have passed since the Jackson County Commissioners voted to merge the county’s health and social services departments, but members of the Consolidated Human Services Board newly created to oversee the consolidated department are still holding out hope that the decision will be reversed. During its Aug. 14 meeting, the board voted to delay hiring a director for the merged department until after the November elections. 

When the Jackson County Health and Human Services Board met for its inaugural meeting June 11, board members made it clear that they had some major questions about county commissioners’ decision to create the consolidated board. The two-hour meeting ended with an exclamation mark when Jerry DeWeese announced his resignation from the board, with the remaining board members taking a split vote in favor of asking commissioners to provide a letter of explanation for the consolidation. 

The tension that surrounded Jackson County commissioners’ decision to merge its health and social services departments wasn’t hard to sense when the new consolidated board gathered for its first meeting Monday, June 11. 

A pair of party-line votes May 7 triggered the next step in consolidating Jackson County’s social services and health departments, creating a new board to oversee the combined department and approving a new position to manage it. 

After January’s split vote to merge the social services and health departments into one consolidated department, the Jackson County commissioners are moving toward appointing a board and hiring a director to oversee the new department. 

In a party-line vote that came after a lengthy and impassioned public hearing, the Jackson County Commissioners voted Jan. 29 to merge the county’s health and social services departments into a single consolidated human services agency. 

An ongoing push to see Jackson County consolidate its health and social services departments will come to a head during a public hearing on the issue scheduled for Monday, Jan. 29, with a vote possible the same day.

Jackson County will pursue a plan to consolidate its health and social services departments following a special-called commissioners meeting held Thursday, Nov. 16.

A complaint filed in Haywood County Superior Court late last month alleges that several defendants committed battery and inflicted emotional distress on two children in 2015.

After 20 years with the department, Jackson County’s director of social services will be retiring from county employment at the end of the month, but the department won’t want for experienced leadership going forward.