A divided county Board of Supervisors moved Tuesday to take a more active role in running two troubled departments, shifting some authority away from Chief Executive Officer William Fujioka.
The supervisors voted 3-2 to draft an ordinance requiring the Children and Family Services and Probation departments to report directly to the board instead of to Fujioka.
The ordinance, if approved in two weeks, would allow the board to hire the heads of both departments. That power is currently held by Fujioka.
The vote came a week after Antonia Jimenez, the acting director of DCFS, defied a direct order from the board and resigned. She returned to her old job as a deputy to Fujioka. The Probation Department is presently headed by Donald Blevins.
"I don't believe bureaucrats should stand in the way of elected officials," said Supervisor Michael Antonovich, one of the three who supported the shift. "I don't believe that bureaucrats should muzzle information that is very vital to the constituencies that we serve."
Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Gloria Molina also voted in favor of the ordinance, with Mark Ridley-Thomas and Don Knabe against it.
Yaroslavsky agreed the board should be "engaged and involved in every aspect" of both departments.
"Members of the board have had experiences with department heads who've told them that they don't report to the board, they report to the CEO," he said. "They refuse to share information."
Knabe said he voted against the measure because "It seemed like a motion off the top of someone's head and I didn't see any rationale for exempting the departments (from the management of the CEO)."
Several other departments currently report directly to the board, including the Fire Department, County Counsel, Auditor-Controller and the CEO.
Jimenez resigned after the board ordered her to sign a contract with the Children's Special Investigation Unit. She was against a provision in the contract that barred her from sharing the unit's reports with DCFS staff.
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