Rideout appointed as new Oneida County Human Services director

As of January 1, 2025, Oneida County will have a brand new Department of Human Services, and on that same day that department will have a brand new director: Mary Rideout, the current director of the county’s Department of Social Services. Rideout was the unanimous choice of everybody—the county social services committee, the county’s executive committee, and, this week, by a 17-0 vote, by the county board of supervisors.

The Human Services Department represents the merging of the county’s social services department and the current Human Service Center, in which the county is ending its participation at the end of this year.

Rideout was the only candidate for the position, and the resulting appointment will allow her to be involved in the hiring of a new deputy human services director.

Supervisor Robb Jensen, the chairman of the county’s social services committee, said the selection process was a little different given the circumstances.

“Typically the committee of jurisdiction would be the one that would provide this recommendation,” Jensen told supervisors. “However, in reality, the committee of jurisdiction won’t exist until January 1. The process we’ve been using is the social services committee gets together, we worked on the job description for this and the deputy, and we forwarded on to the executive committee, and then the executive committee to the board.”

Jensen said the position was posted only internally within the county.

“That was, I think, to some a surprise,” he said. “I was in favor of that, though I’ve been a long advocate of external posting. But I think this situation is a little bit different in that we have been fortunate that Ms. Rideout is already over there at the Human Service Center a couple hours a day helping in that transition. She’s become a known person and I believe the trusted person as we move forward.”

Once the position was posted internally, Jensen said, there was but one applicant: Rideout.

“We had no other internal applications,” he said. “And I think, with Ms. Rideout’s character and her performance over time, I think this should be supported by this county board as we look to put her in charge of the Human Services Department. I do think it is a logical transition as we look at 2025.”

Jail access system

In other action, the county board unanimously approved a resolution to amend the 2024 budget to add a jail access control project to the Capital Improvement Plan.

According to the resolution, “the jail access system is currently running on outdated technology requiring manual intervention. As such, this is causing operating, safety, and compliance concerns. 

To ensure the safety of staff and inmates, prompt replacement of the system is necessary.”

There were insufficient funds in available 2024 appropriations in the Capital Improvement Fund to cover the new project, so the resolution authorized an amendment to the 2024 capital improvement plan to transfer $569,184 from general fund unrestricted reserves to cover the cost. 

Information Services Technology director Jason Rhodes said the jail control access system allows safe exits and entries to the jail, as well as monitoring the inmates. 

“It also has the intercom system attached to it,” Rhodes said. “We’re currently facing aged hardware. They’re called programmable logic circuits that are at least 20 years old. They are proprietary boards and they’re not to be found any longer. Our last vendor kind of pieced them together to try to make everything work and it just doesn’t.”

It has failed many times since it’s been implemented since 2014, Rhodes said. 

“This last time it was down for about two-and-a-half, almost three months because our vendor couldn’t find anybody to actually do the programming for it,” he said. “We found a vendor who can replace everything and told us exactly what’s wrong with it, what needs to be done to fix it. It’s really a critical system for the jail and it goes to safety issues for both the inmates and the staff.”

Oneida County sheriff’s department chief deputy Terri Hook said it’s something the department had to have.

“All of our doors are accessed with key pads and intercoms and, when they don’t work, what ends up happening is someone ends up stuck in a place where nobody can see them and nobody can get them out,” Hook said. “And that has happened where a Huber person was stuck in an area and we did eventually figure out that there was someone there, but this is why it’s so important for this. If there’s a fire in the jail, God forbid or anything like that, we need to be able to access those doors and get them moving so that people can get out and this is part of the system that does that.”

It’s just 20 years old, Hook said, it’s not working any longer and it’s something that they have to have at the jail. 

Supervisor Billy Fried wondered if there was a way to avoid such things coming at the county out of the blue. 

“As we have challenges to fund things moving forward, what assurances can we have that in the future we will have a little more anticipation for this type of expense?” Fried asked.

Rhodes said he was unsure that such a situation as the one at hand could have been anticipated. The latest problem has been time consuming, Rhodes said, and just wasn’t sustainable. 

“The vendor themselves said they could not support it,” he said. “They hired an outside gun to come in to try to help. We’re currently working right now. However, it has failed twice since then. We’ve been able to go in and get things going again.”

Rhodes reiterated that it was a critical system that needs to work. Going forward — with new equipment, new hardware, new software — the county would be supported in steps, he said: “The equipment’s not outdated at this point and we would be able to be supported by our vendor.”

Hook also reiterated the importance from a safety standpoint.

“If even just one inmate is locked in a cell and we can’t get them out, and there’s a fire, that is going to be way more than this amount of money to try to answer that,” she said. “We are housing people. We are required to keep them safe. This is part of that safety plan.”

The resolution to fund the project passed 17-0.