River News: Our View

Oneida County’s long, long human services nightmare is nearly over, and soon those in need of those vital programs will be adequately served, thanks to the Oneida County board’s vote this week to officially reorganize its delivery of community services.

Those who work for the soon-to-be disbanded Human Service Center (HSC) should feel reassured, too, knowing they have secure employment as reorganization proceeds. Don’t let the gaslighters tell you any different.

The same goes for Vilas and Forest counties, as previously the three counties had voted to end their contracts with the tri-county HSC. As we detail in today’s edition, each county will now establish its own human services department, combining social services and human services into one agency, as most of Wisconsin already does.

It’s long overdue, and, when we say long overdue, we are talking about 25 years overdue. Over the years, as we will recount in a subsequent report, the HSC has been plagued by mismanagement, internal hostility, and an ongoing trend toward fiefdom-building, all the while the losers being the very people the center has been supposed to serve.

We are going to recount those failures in another report for a number of reasons, but there are two especially.

For one, the tri-county HSC serves as a special reminder of how bad government bureaucracy can get if there is not constant vigilance over each and every government entity. Make no mistake, bureaucracy exists for the sake of bureaucracy — a necessary evil that by its very nature exalts itself over those it was created to serve.

There are good bureaucrats, of course, who steer the ship and make sure the bureaucracy delivers on its mission — more about that in a minute — but there are many more who are devoured by the system and end up serving it rather than the people. That’s why vigilance is a vital guardrail.

Second, the HSC serves as a specific example of decades-long inertia in Oneida County, a place where calls for reform are often made but seldom carried out. Calls for disbanding the Human Service Center first surfaced in 1999 and gained steam in 2004 but went nowhere. The powers-that-be brushed aside expert warnings — and reports of serious wrongdoing at the agency that appeared in this newspaper — and even state action against the HSC.

Instead, they decided simply to “tweak” the HSC instead of substantially reorganizing. And look where that got us.

There are echoes of that kind of thinking here in the county today. Every year we hear supervisors moan about overspending and warn that “the day is coming when drastic cuts will have to be made.” Yet, when the dust settles, these same supervisors always refuse to make cuts to the budget. It doesn’t happen.

More to the point, look at what has happened to county board chairman Scott Holewinski’s proposal to reorganize county government by hiring a full-time coordinator. It got torpedoed in committee because other supervisors want to protect turf, and so they have proposed “tweaking” the current structure, which provides for built-in supremacy for the bureaucracy.

Sound familiar? Before any supervisor endorses tweaking the current structure, they should really, really examine our coming report on how tweaking the HSC worked over the years.

Spoiler alert: Tweaking translated into misery for the most vulnerable among us.

The irony is, now that the county is finally taking steps to right the ship, some officials continue to defend the mess that has been the HSC. They continue to try and scare those who are actually in need of HSC services, including behavioral and mental health programs, and services to children with disabilities.

That’s simply unacceptable because, while the failures of the HSC have been many and have unbelievably stretched over decades, in recent times the crisis has become so acute that lives have been at stake. To cite one example, in a discussion of that crisis in Oneida County last year, Tim Johnson, a patrol sergeant with the Oneida County Sheriff's Office, told county supervisors that the HSC provided poor quality services to those in mental crisis:

“I have personally experienced, in my job capacity, crisis screeners not placing mental commitments on individuals who have attempted an overact of harming themselves or others,” Johnson said. “For example, a female who sent messages to her family telling them goodbye and deputies finding her in a public park unconscious and slumped over at the wheel. I observed as deputies administered CPR and Narcan, bringing her back to life, only for the crisis screener to place a safety plan and allow her to go home after medical clearance.”

Over time law enforcement reported that HSC screeners no longer performed in-person screenings, handled mental evaluations over the phone, and often ignored deputies’ recommendations.

Oneida County sheriff Grady Hartman said the delivery system for HSC services was archaic.

“Our current system (of delivery of services) brings the Human Service Center into the mix, and ultimately that board was formed,” Hartman said. “I believe that it is an antiquated system; 64 of the 72 counties are having that service done in-house through social services. There’s not a push to go to conglomerates now.”

Hartman said law enforcement, corporation counsels’ offices and social services agencies of the three counties had to deal with the Human Service Center on a daily basis and they stood in solidarity “that those services are not being provided in the best management that they could be. That’s why we asked for the change.”

Law enforcement and the counties’ social services agencies tried in vain for years to have discussions with the HSC to “meet in the middle” and spur change. But they all met with brick walls when they tried to work with the Human Service Center board.

So the past of the Human Service Center is a tomb of tawdry tales.

With last week’s vote, it is time now to look to the future, and it is considerably brighter. In general, Oneida County government has improved dramatically with the current board and under the guidance and steady hand of chairman Scott Holewinski. 

In this particular matter, though, we give credit to two other county employees, sheriff Hartman and social services director Mary Rideout. Their vociferous support for reform actually made change happen for once. They deserve the praise of all the citizens of Oneida County.

We have written much before about the sheriff’s commitment to transparency — a big issue at HSC — and in serving his constituency, but, while less commented upon, Rideout’s commitment to openness and community is no less.

She is a long veteran of the social services agency, serving three years in Vilas County before coming to Oneida County — by our count she has worked with Oneida County social services some 31 years — and has been director since 2014. Before that she was the right-hand person for social services director Paul Spencer.

Usually, such a length of service in a bureaucracy is a red flag, but not here. Through the years, Rideout has kept her focus on the mission of serving vulnerable populations with the job she is tasked to do without transforming the agency into a personal ideological crusade, in which clients inevitably get left behind.

The dedication to mission has been evident throughout this process, too.

Which brings us to one last point. As mentioned above, there have been those who have wanted throughout this process to preserve the status quo — and the fiefdom and privileges it represents — at the expense of the vulnerable and who have continued to spread gloom and doom in an attempt to scare those who work for the HSC and those who need and utilize its services.

Linnaea Newman did so again at the county board this week. No sooner had Rideout laid out a concrete and specific plan to absorb HSC personnel into Oneida County and offer them secure employment — citing state laws for the protection of those employees in doing so — Newman simply asserted that there was no plan, that none of the jobs were safe, and neither were those who use HSC services.

It was a lie. It was shameful. It was dishonest gaslighting for an ideological agenda. It’s why such people should never be listened to. They have no moral compass.

For her part, Rideout made the correct point: “I don’t know how many other ways to say it. We need those staff, we want those [staff] to continue to do our services. I know the rumor mill gets crazy, but I wish somebody would just stop and pay attention to what I’m saying. We need the staff, we will need them going forward and we will work to get them incorporated into Oneida County’s pay structure.”

And all that will be done sooner rather than later, Rideout said.

We urge everyone who needs and uses HSC services — or who have family and friends who do — to listen to Rideout and not to the fear-mongering of the likes of Linnaea Newman, who simply ignored what Rideout said, as if Rideout’s pledge can’t and won’t be measured publicly.

We ask the same thing of the HSC staff. It’s important to note that the HSC’s failures do not belong in their lap but in the mismanagement of them, and that they know they will have a job. Rather than listen to those who have led the agency to ruin in the past, we urge them to heed those who are tasked with the future of community service here in the county.

The whole HSC drama has been a storm for sure. But this time the county is right in its move to reorganize, it is the equivalent of sending the Red Cross in for you. HSC gaslighters are going down; don’t let them take you with them.

What everyone needs to do now while reorganization is completed is to ride out the storm of ideological pandering, and have confidence in those who have provided critical services for their entire careers.

Fortunately, there is a leader with an apt name to help us ride out the storm: Mary Rideout. May she continue to excel in her service.