Wednesday, May 17, 2006 | 7:31 a.m.
Clark County Manager Thom Reilly appointed a new director of the Family Services Division last week, quickly and without a national search only after he said he was blindsided by the sudden resignation of the department's director.
Reilly said Tuesday that he fully expected former director Susan Klein-Rothschild to be part of a reorganization of the troubled department and that the changes he was considering would have allowed her to focus more on internal matters. He said her abrupt departure forced him to move quickly.
Reilly's comments were in response to two critics unhappy that a national search was not conducted and that he instead named Thomas Morton of the Georgia-based Child Welfare Institute to oversee the division.
Morton's selection also came under some fire this week from detractors at child service organizations in the Midwest, two of whom questioned his ethical conduct.
But two others involved with child services championed Morton this week as an innovator in the field, one saying that he may be exactly what the troubled Clark County agency needs.
Reilly appointed Morton on May 3, the same day Klein-Rothschild resigned. The division has been under intense scrutiny because of overcrowding at county child-care facilities and the high-profile deaths of several children in the county's care.
Morton founded the Child Welfare Institute and has worked with several states in an attempt to improve family services. This will be his first job directing an agency on a county level.
Glenn Campbell, whose Family Court Chronicles Web site tracks social service issues in the valley, is critical of the lack of a national search to fill the position.
"What's wrong with looking at other candidates?" Campbell said. "If this is the best candidate right now, then he'll still be the best one two or three months from now. I don't think we've lost anything by investing those few months."
Reilly said Klein-Rothschild's departure left a void that needed to be filled for the benefit of those working within the division and the people in the community.
"To leave something vacant for a month or two without people understanding who is coming in was not really an option," he said. "We already had several contracts with people and we can't stay still for two months."
He acknowledged that he has been working to restructure the troubled department, but said he anticipated Klein-Rothschild would be involved in the reorganization.
"If I were to replace Susan and ask her to leave, I probably would have done things a little differently," Reilly said. "I've only made four direct appointments and I've done searches on all the rest."
Faced with the prospect of an immediate vacancy in such a high-profile position, however, spending several months on a national search was not an option, he said.
Klein-Rothschild bore the brunt of criticism aimed at the department in light of a state panel's review of 79 suspicious child deaths in Clark County between 2001 and 2004. The study was critical of the way those deaths were investigated. Eleven of the children were in state or county custody when they died.
Klein-Rothschild, who had been chosen from a field of more than 50 candidates after an extensive national search in 2001, could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.
County Commission Chairman Rory Reid, who supports Reilly's quick action, said he is not concerned that a national search was not conducted this time: "I think we have a policy of giving the county manager significant discretion to look for qualified people and come to us to justify the selection. I think this has worked well in the past."
Donna Coleman of Washington-based Demanding Justice for America's Children said the decision to hire Morton should not have just been made internally.
"When you hire somebody at that level, you should let the public in on it," said Coleman, a longtime critic of the county's child welfare services. "We don't even know who this guy is."
Reilly pointed out that Morton's appointment will not be official until ratified by the County Commission, which he hopes will happen in June. In the meantime, he encouraged anyone with questions about Morton or his appointment to come forward and express them: "If people are concerned, I really encourage them to sit down and meet with him."
Morton, in fact, has several meetings scheduled in Las Vegas this week, including one that Coleman will attend.
Morton also may face questions about criticism of him by detractors at two Midwest child service organizations. The criticism has been highlighted on Campbell's Web site.
Chris Baird of the Children's Research Center in Madison, Wis., told the Sun that Morton's ethics are highly questionable: "He is someone who will say anything to promote his own point of view."
Baird pointed to a commentary by Morton about a paper Baird co-authored for Children's Research Center. Baird said Morton not only misquoted the document, but also fabricated a statement and attributed it to his organization.
Morton acknowledged that he juxtaposed numbers when attributing his statement and said Baird had rebuffed his attempts to explain the error.
Another organization, the North American Resource Center for Child Welfare, made similar claims against Morton, referring to one of his works as "a vitriolic attack on an unpublished draft paper."
In an interview with the Sun, Ronald Hughes, the agency's director, says Morton used a partial quote from the organization, and then attacked the credibility of the quote without considering the part that was omitted.
Morton counters that the omitted part of the quote had no bearing on his critique of the article.
Morton also has supporters nationally.
Benjamin Wolf of the Illinois American Civil Liberties Union said Morton was instrumental in instituting advances that turned around troubled child services programs in that state.
"He's a reformer that doesn't accept conventional wisdom and traditional approaches to training and rule-making that haven't worked," Wolf said.
Richard Wexler of the Virginia-based National Coalition for Child Protection Reform called Morton "a maverick and a creative, original thinker. He may be exactly what Clark County needs."
Wexler cited the success Morton has had in New York, Illinois and Alabama as proof that his ideas can be successful.
Reilly said it was such progressive thinking that convinced him Morton was the right choice for the county job. He said Morton's record speaks for itself, and he is satisfied with the way Morton has answered his critics.
"Of course there's going to be a little controversy. Child welfare is a challenging field," Reilly said. "The fact that you critique things and change things is not necessarily a bad thing."
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