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Housed under the same roof on Briw Road in Placerville since 1996, the county’s Child Support department will separate from the Health and Human Services Department and move to Shingle Springs.
The El Dorado County Board of Supervisors authorized the move at its Aug. 14 meeting and approved a lease agreement with Carlton Commercial Properties for 10 years, 10 months at the company’s headquarters building on Ponderosa Road. Rent for the 18,600 square foot facility and the extended agreement will total $3,839,539, according to the board’s agenda documents.
Citing lack of space for current and proposed services at Briw Road, department head Laura Roth described the Carlton building as more “centrally located to the population served by Child Support Services” and “a major benefit to operational opportunities.”
The documents further note that the department will be able to provide “increased outreach, host family law clinics and job fairs, facilitate multi-party mediations and case orientation meetings.”
Child Support currently has approximately 64 employees, according to the county’s Website.
Beginning Oct. 1, the county will pay $1.32 per square foot, and over the life of the agreement the lease amount will increase incrementally every year to top out at $1.80 by Fiscal Year 2023-24.
County Facilities Manager Russ Fackrell said in an e-mail to the Mountain Democrat that Alan Carlton of Carlton Engineering had structured the lease with the county as a way to “scale down” and that his firm doesn’t “require that much space at this time.”
The lease agreement includes janitorial service, sewer, water and propane expenses as well as tenant improvement allowances and existing modular and office furniture. Early termination of the agreement would result in a penalty to reimburse Carlton for “upfront expenses.” However, after the fifth year, the county retains the option “to terminate the lease without any further financial obligation or penalty.”
In addition to Child Support Services, the Ponderosa Road facility will also be the new home of the county’s Revenue Recovery Division currently located at the government center’s building A and a small division of related Health and Human Services Agency staff from Briw Road.
HHSA staff are currently spread throughout numerous satellite buildings in Placerville and moving them to the Briw Road site will reduce “inefficiencies,” the documents state. Toward that end, administrative and fiscal staff from the public health division of HHSA will relocate to Briw Road. They have generally been housed in the decades-old Pioneer hospital buildings off Spring Street in Placerville for many years.
While the increased space at Briw will not accommodate all of the many HHSA programs operated by the county, Communications Officer and Health Programs Manager Margaret Williams reported the following:
“In terms of services to the public, there should be little change. We plan to continue providing the following programs at Briw Road:
We are continuing to discuss ways we can enhance our services to members of the community by integrating and co-locating programs that provide similar services and/or serve the same clients. If changes are made at any of our sites and/or if programs/services are moved, we will make every effort to inform our clients and partnering agencies in a timely manner.”
Contact Chris Daley at 530-344-5063 or cdaley@mtdemocrat.net. Follow @CDaleyMtDemo.
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JustAugust 29, 2012 - 8:39 am
How is it possible, an employee at Child Support is allowed to "adjust" her husbands child support status? He should have had his driving license taken away, but magically, it didn't. I'm smelling a big dirty rat. I think I would like a job like this- husband breaks a law, wipe his slate clean, no worry. Maybe somebody out there who is honest and looking for a job, would like her job? You think? I do.
Jim RiordanAugust 30, 2012 - 1:46 pm
Thankfully the private sector, as in Carlton Engineering, will receive some of our tax dollars for rent thus putting at least some of our tax dollars from these, In my opinion, worthless agencies, back into the private sector . . . . You know the tax payers, not the tax wasters..... As a Court Appointed Receiver, I was in charge of an apartment building in SLT. One of my duties was to collect rent. One tenant family consisting of a "man", a woman and two little girls were living in one apartment for months without paying rent. Of course, they were receiving aid from HHS and from CPS and "faking" rent receipts while avoiding actually paying rent. The "man" spent nearly every day with his apartment door open watching porn on his computer in front of the two little girls and children from adjoining apartments. Other disgusted tenants complained to my landlord. We in turn contacted CPS and they removed the kids for a couple of months, then returned them to the same environment. By then, we had to go to court and get an eviction order to be enforced by our EDSO. On a Friday am, just before they were to be evicted, they moved out leaving behind a trash heap. Finally convinced they were gone, my landlord was going to replace the locks that evening. On her way to do so, she found the same family MOVING BACK IN the same afternoon. When my landlord asked what they were doing, the woman told my landlord that the family had, "visited CPS and HHS to get money for a month's rent" at the next victims' apartment complex. When the "social worker" learned the building was in receivership, they were told by their "social worker" that "if the apartment building is in receivership, they won't be able to evict you again for months, so just go back there and live for free." So, they came back and did just that. The same day I complained to the heads of both CPS and HHS and told them they were:1) dispensing legal advice without a license to practice law, and 2) encouraging them to defraud an innkeeper, in this case a felony due to the rent amount. These supposed "dept. heads" claimed they "could not give any info to me regarding who dispensed such info due to privacy rules" but they would conduct an "internal investigation". Riiiight. If you believe that, I have a bridge you might like to buy. Of course the results of this supposed "investigation" had to be kept private so essentially I had no one to depose, etc. A perfect government scam. So, I am glad Carlton is at least getting some of our taxes back for us, however, in my opinion both of these agencies are bottom feeding ,tax wasters hiding behind "privacy" to protect their, at least in some cases, thieving "clients". I would much rather have seen them move into a run down government owned "project" building where they can rub elbows with their "clients" and perhaps counsel them on how to defraud landlords. Or, better yet, disband them entirely. These people need to be accountable for their actions.
Thank you JackAugust 30, 2012 - 6:36 pm
What a great retirement gift, does the county pay the taxes on this one also?