Portage County commissioners have become "the sacrificial lamb" for not having a formal vetting process for board appointments, said commissioner Sabrina Christian-Bennett during Thursday’s meeting.
Earlier this month, the Record-Courier reported that the commissioners did not have such a process in place, a shortcoming that allowed the board to appoint an individual with a felony record to the Portage County Board of Developmental Disabilities.
While the specific felonies do not disqualify the individual from serving on the volunteer board, the lack of a process was still concerning to commissioners and parents who spoke at last week’s board meeting.
On Jan. 11, Commissioner Mike Kerrigan presented a draft proposal that would create an application form or questionnaire for each applicant to complete and send to the commissioners that could be used for all boards the commissioners have appointing authority over.
But this week, commissioners discussed a different kind of process: Putting the responsibility for vetting candidates on the individual boards before the candidate is appointed by the commissioners.
"We need to reach out to each board that we appoint. None of us ever sit on those boards. We don’t attend the meetings, yet we’re expected to appoint good people that match that board," said Christian-Bennett. "That’s why we need to send out a letter to each and every board, have them come in and meet with us or ask them to come up with questions or ask them if there is any required paperwork that is required before an appointment, or if we’re required to have background checks.
"Let’s face it. I’ve talked with numerous people. We have been made the sacrificial lamb for this. I’ve talked with cities. I’ve talked with townships. I’ve talked with villages. They all did it the same way we did."
The board of commissioners acts as an appointing authority for more than 30 boards and commissions in Portage. Some of those, including the DD Board, have state requirements that must be fulfilled prior to an appointment.
Under the suggestion of Christian-Bennett, the responsibility for ensuring those requirements are met are not on the commissioners but on the individual boards.
Kerrigan said that even if they did that, the county should have some kind of policy in place to safeguard their appointment process.
"To me, and I’m not an attorney, but in the Ohio Revised Code there are certain felonies that we can’t appoint people to a board because of," said Kerrigan. "Now, that doesn’t apply to the DD situation and I hope it doesn’t apply to anyone we’ve appointed previously. But we have a duty to know if anybody has these felonies. The only way to that is through a BCI or FBI background check."
Kerrigan made sure to clarify that the intent of a background check is not to whittle down candidates based on their criminal records or some other "bias point," but to ensure that candidates can legally serve without issue.
While individuals who have been convicted of certain felony-level crimes like murder or rape are barred from serving on most all board and commissions according to federal law, Kerrigan said the county policy should adapt some aspects of it to a local level without discriminating against others.
"We need to set the foundation," he said.