Kent County DHS director wants job back

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - Andy Zylstra, until recently the director of the Kent County Department of Human Services , filed a formal grievance Monday to get his job back.

"The current DHS administration has used rule by fear and intimidation and flagrant abuse of civil service rules to keep the field 'in line' in the past," he writes.

Read the grievance here (Microsoft Word document).

Zylstra is demanding he be sent back to Kent County and "that I be protected from further harassment and retribution from MDHS Central Office Administration."

His new office doesn't even have a phone, he said.

Zylstra publicly acknowledged serious shortcomings with the system, such as being unable to answer 70 percent of the calls needy people made to the office. He told 24 Hour News 8 a few weeks ago that that particular failure was improving.

But a few days later, he was gone. He had moved to a job in Lansing.

"I don't know that I'll be more effective in advocating in Lansing than I have been in Kent County," Zylstra told 24 Hour News 8. "I don't think I'll have any more influence."

The grievances are "related to my mandatory reassignment to Lansing," he said. "I will contest it as an arbitrary and capricious reassignment...I don't think it's because they need my skills in Lansing more than they need my skills and abilities in Kent County. I believe that where I am of best value to the department is as director of Kent County Department of Human Services."

Zylstra wants to stay in Kent County because "I'm committed to making sure citizens of Kent County have the services they're entitled to from the state of Michigan. That's always been my emphasis -- services to the citizens of Kent County."

He said he has "the option to retire. That may be what they want me to do." But he doesn't feel he's ready to retire. "I've got good years ahead of me to provide service. I want to spend my days in Kent County helping to improve the system of service delivery whether it be with this department or another agency. I'd rather continue with the department because I think they need my help in Kent County."

Zylstra said he's sought medical opinions about taking a medical leave. "There's a lot of stress involved here."

24 Hour News 8 spoke Friday with one of many clients who have had recent issues with the DHS.

Latisha Morris lost her job at Leer a few years ago and has been getting help for herself and two kids thru the Department of Human Services. But now she's lost her food assistance and went to the DHS office Wednesday to try to get it back because she's been unable to get in touch with her worker.

"I had my food stamps cut off on the 10th," she told 24 Hour News 8. After waiting in line 15 minutes, she was told she couldn't talk to her case worker but could use a house phone to call her caseworker's supervisor, somewhere in an upstairs office.

When she got through she explained her problem.

"I tried to contact her five times," Morris said. "I faxed in my paper work and I got no response back and now I'm sitting here with no stamps."

The supervisor told her over the phone that her worker was getting 100 calls a day and had other problems, too.

"They said that their fax machines aren't working right, a brand new building and she never received the fax," Morris said. "When it really really took a turn was when they moved to the new building. A couple weeks before they moved to that new building they were scrambling around."

That appraisal from a client squares with what the former director Andy Zylstra has said. A new computer system at the same time as the move plus a drastic increase in cases caused the service problems, Zylstra said.

In Latisha Morris' case the supervisor she talked to said she'd email the case worker to call her about restoring her food help.

But 48 hours later, "She hasn't called. I don't really believe she's gonna call. So me and my kids are going to suffer through the holidays, you know. What can I do?"

A DHS spokesman told 24 Hour News 8 the agency is making substantial progress in resolving cases, and said the fax machines are working. Each Kent County worker handles 600 individual cases, the spokesman said.

He says that in October DHS in Kent County got 195,000 calls for cash assistance and child welfare.

"We're certainly not providing services the way we'd like to," Zylstra said. "A lot of it isout of our control. The economy, new computer system. Everything I see in statistics, we're certanly not doing worse than other counties, and in some situations better. New building, new telephone system." But he said there's "not enough staff" and that furlough days proved challenging.

"I've always liked a challenge. We're going make this thing better. I don't want to leave until I see a vast improvement in the way we deliver services. And that can happen. We have an excellent staff."