Cleveland County Agencies:
1. The Cleveland County Department of Social Services (DSS) led by Director Karen Ellis. The DSS has been very bad for a long time, but so have the Cleveland County Commissioners as well as CCS. So we have to rate the Commissioners, DSS and CCS as tied for the worst of the worst government agencies at the local level. Read on and you decide if one is more bad (can’t help the grammar in this case) than the others.
The DSS has been linked with funding the drug trade in Cleveland County with Food Stamps. approximately $36 Million per year in Food Stamps are provided by DSS to about 25% of the county population. Many reports have been made to DSS regarding folks selling Food Stamps to buy drugs yet DSS has prosecuted ZERO cases of Food Stamp fraud. I have personally been informed by some of the folks who have made these reports and have followed up to find the truth of the matter. The truth is DSS does NOT turn over these reports to the DA for prosecution. They “say” they just try to get the money back. Which they don’t. They might remove the offender from the Food Stamp rolls for thirty days, but the offender just reapplies the next month and get approved all over again. Some Food Stamp recipients actually sell their Food Stamps for drugs, then sell the drugs to other Food Stamp recipients for their Food Stamps. A tight little criminal enterprise totally funded by the taxpayers who are the ones who pay for the Food Stamps DSS so easily supplies to the criminal. While many who actually need help are turned down by DSS.
Of course there are the adoption rackets, the Group Home rackets, the Foster Home rackets where DSS feeds children they illegally take away from families and place them, like commodities to be bought and sold, to the highest bidder. Just like the boy (Clay Wesley Green, 13) who ran away repeatedly from a home in Kings Mountain. School Board Member Danny Blanton has offered to take Clay Green into his own home to raise as his own child (as Blanton has previously done for another child) at no cost to DSS, yet DSS has refused to place the child with the Blanton family.
Then, the multiple failures of DSS to protect children in their system. The deaths of two year olds Jodice Peeler, Jeremiah Swafford and others in Cleveland County and Jordyn DuMont just across the line in Gaston County shows how ineffective DSS is in protecting children.
DSS never seems to learn from their mistakes. Actually DSS may not consider these deaths of children in their system as mistakes. They always use the deaths of children as an excuse to hire additional workers and no worker is disciplined for doing a bad job.
But, DSS Director Karen Ellis cannot be totally blamed for the mess at DSS. Ellis was hired from within and without any outside candidates being considered by the DSS Board. The DSS Board includes Susan Allen, Mary Accor and Betsy Wells as a total majority. With these “Mud Hens” running things it is a wonder things are only as bad as they are and not even worse. (Perhaps they are worse and the “confidentiality DSS claims is just a cover up.) A Federal Lawsuit against DSS has already been filed and my understanding is another Federal Lawsuit against DSS, including the Cleveland County Commissioners, is on the way. Perhaps justice will finally be done at DSS.
