Around 7 p.m. Monday night, Geraldine Robinson was getting welcomes and congratulations on just being hired as Durham County's new social-services director.
By 9 p.m., she might well have been wondering why she took the job.
County commissioners had just decided to sic an internal auditor on her department-to-be, after social-services brass went through more than an hour of grilling and complaint over cutting the money out from under a family-service program.
"As you can see," commissioner Becky Heron told Robinson afterward, "Durham is never dull."
The program in question was Family First, which Durham Congregations in Action had run for 11 years under contract with the county. Retired director Sammy Haithcock terminated its contract at the end of the 2008-09 fiscal year.
Called to account Monday night by commissioner Joe Bowser, DSS board Chairman Newman Aguiar and assistant directors Rhonda Stevens and Antonia Pedroza fumbled attempts at explanation — at one point trying to explain how a cut in funding was not a cut in funding, at another how a contract program was left to carry on for 11 years with a consistent record of alleged underachievement.
"It's not a pretty thing," Bowser said.
An angry Pebbles Lindsay-Lucas, who directed Family First, who had been watching the meeting on TV, came to the commissioners' chamber in person to contest the "misinformation" she said DSS was presenting.
"I wanted to make sure that the truth be known," she said. "I have never had a bad evaluation from DSS. ... I have worked and served families."
Family First was supposed to match needy families with local congregations that would help them get and stay off public assistance. Its 2008-09 budget was $71,278, according to a background paper provided by DSS.
For that money, the program was supposed to match 15 DSS clients and congregations. Stevens said the department referred 22 to Family First, but only six were matched. Aguiar said Congregations in Action had been notified that DSS was dissatisfied with Family First's performance.
"I never received 22," Lindsay-Lucas said, and had not had a full year to operate since she had been advised the contract would not be renewed and to "wrap up the program."
She also said she had had no warnings that DSS was not happy with the program.
Nine other people, including City Council candidate Donald Hughes, spoke in objection to the program's termination and lack of clarity why.
"If we lose this program, we are truly, truly losing a blessing to our community," he said.
Bowser has said he supports Hughes's candidacy. Other speakers included former City Council and school board member Jackie Wagstaff; Lavonia Allison, head of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People; and Barbara Harvey, one of Lindsay-Lucas's former teachers at Hillside High School.
"This woman has a good heart," Harvey said.
Commissioner Ellen Reckhow summed up the situation in the evening's understatement:
"It seems very muddled right now."
In the end, the commissioners voted to have the county auditor review the program's operation, results and funding and "engage all the participants" in the process.
"I'm going to tell the auditor to put that first on his agenda," said County Manager Mike Ruffin.
Then, board Chairman Michael Page formally recognized Robinson, who had been sitting in the audience.
"Thank you for the warm welcome to Durham County," said Robinson, who is moving to Durham from Nashville, Tenn. and grew up in Robeson County.
"We're glad you're here tonight to get oriented," said Bowser.
Said Robinson:
"Challenging times ... can be the best of times."
The commissioners set Robinson's starting salary at $129,000 a year. She has 27 years' experience in social work, including five as social services director in Nashville, Tenn.
That job ended earlier this year when her contract was not renewed. According to the Nashville Tennessean newspaper, she had been criticized by officials there for her handling of employee morale and an agency audit.
