Butler County Jobs and Family Services overhaul includes promotions

EXCLUSIVE: Butler JFS changes mean clients will deal with fewer people

The Journal-News first reported the overhaul of JFS last week, and Glendon has been one of the architects of that plan. She formerly was an administrator for the Children Services side of the combined agency. Glendon also served as Children Services’ ombudsman prior to her promotion to administrator.

Glendon has worked in social services for 15 years, 12 of them with Butler County. She said for a long time Children Services and JFS were focused on meeting state and federal mandates, but now they have shifted toward how they provide programs, and she is glad to be a part of it.

“As the ombudsman, I tried very hard to develop a perspective on how the public experiences our services,” Glendon said. “And it’s that perspective that I want to continue to carry forward. I want to lead our organization in our efforts to make public assistance something that’s easy to access in a time of need, but even more importantly easier to get off of public assistance through employment.”

Interim JFS Executive Director Bill Morrison said while the three JFS agencies — Children Services, the public assistance side and Ohio Means Jobs — are all different, the job Glendon will be doing is really universal.

“She is a great program administrator just as Julie Gilbert is a great program administrator, either of them would do an excellent job of implementing change in any governmental organization,” Morrison said. “While the laws are different and the program is different in a lot of ways, how you manage, it’s the same.”

Gilbert was promoted to assistant director of Children Services a couple months ago.

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Pater has served as the ombudsman — the independent complaint department — for Children Services alone. Morrison said Pater began unofficially taking complaints from people being served by all arms of the JFS operation a couple months ago.

“I think that’s been critical in trying to bring issues to a resolution more quickly,” Morrison said. “I believe it gives the public a sense of satisfaction to know that they’re dealing with someone that is independent of the case-flow process and the administration of the organization, to help work through their problems.”

Glendon’s new salary will be $70,636 and Pater’s will be $74,666.