(Editor’s note: This is the first in a two part series on turnover within the local Safe Homes organization. Part two will include reaction from employees.)
Four members of the board of directors for the local Safe Homes’ organization walked out of an August meeting after months of discord that also cost the organization eight of its ten employees.
“We did have four dynamic board members leave, ” said Amy Nolen, one of the board members who remained. “We have lost some very competent and good workers.”
The resignations and firings occurred after a new executive director, Jolan Csukas, was hired in March. The board last week decided not to renew Csukas’ contract and hired the former executive director of the Bartlesville, Okla., school district as interim director for Safe Homes, according to board president Rick Potter.
“Her contract was up,” he said. “We were in a position where we could either offer another contract, or not. Her……contract was not renewed.”
Winfield-based Safe Homes provides shelter and services for victims of domestic violence. The organization has outreach programs in Sumner and Chautauqua counties.
Many of the former employees and board members were interviewed by NewsCow during the past month. They talked about the divided board, the internal strife, and the toll it took on their personal lives. At the same time, they were united in their belief that the organization and the services provided battered women and their families are an absolute necessity.
“The organization is alive and well,” said Potter, an Arkansas City police officer. “We are continuing to provide quality service to clients and always will in the future. We are here to stay.”
The shelter Safe Homes operates remained open during the dissension. Employees said it is not unusual for as many as 15 women and children to stay at the shelter.
“The shelter is never closed, nor will it,” Potter said.
There was a division on the board although there have also been some positive changes in the local organization, according to Nolen.
“We are changing the direction of our leadership. We want someone in there who will not only work well with the public but with the staff,” Nolen said. “Our staff should be built up and supported by the executive director, and told every day how valuable their job is.”
BOARD CHANGES
Kristy Powers took over the presidency in January when the former president’s term on the board expired. Powers resigned in June but the board did not accept her resignation, said Michelle Sisson, who was vice president of the board at the time.
Powers, who declined to be interviewed, changed her mind about leaving and was present for the August meeting since the board had not accepted her resignation. There were, however, some board members who felt that since Powers had resigned she was no longer on the board, and whether or not the board ‘accepted’ the resignation wasn’t a consideration as much as a vote whether to take her back, according to Sisson.
Board members Mike Westmoreland, Amy Dick, and Sisson felt so strongly about the issue that they resigned and walked out of the meeting. Powers, who Sisson said was waiting in another room while the board discussed her resignation, stepped into the meeting room and resigned a second time after learning the other three were leaving.
The minutes of the August 20 meeting reflect only that the three resigned and that Powers “had re-entered the meeting and also resigned.” A motion, the minutes states, was made to accept the resignation of the board members. Then the meeting continued.
“It’s unbelievable everything that’s taken place,” Sisson said. “It was just pettiness.”
Between the time Powers first resigned and the time the other three board members quit, Sisson suspended Csukas. Employees were threatening to quit and Sisson said she supported them and understood their complaints about Csukas, who had only been working for Safe Homes since March.
Other board members felt a probationary period for Csukas was a better step to take, so the suspension was rescinded and Csukas was put on probation, Sisson said. The conflict between board members and the number of employees who either had quit or planned to quit were the primary factors in Sisson’s decision to resign halfway through a three-year term.
“I feel like a portion of the board lost their vision of what Safe Homes is about,” she said.
There had also been an effort to remove one member of the board for violating board policies. The motion was defeated by one proxy vote.
“We kind of felt like as long as she stayed on the board we would have problems,” Sisson said. ” Fighting over little things, we were not really focusing on the victim and what we could be doing for the organization.”
Westmoreland, also a police officer, agreed with Sisson that the board wasn’t “getting anything done as far as clients or employees. He spoke with NewsCow on the condition that the department for which he works not be identified.
“Most of the board meetings were just bickering between one and another,” he said. “The board was divided. We couldn’t get anything done. The employees were bringing concerns to us all the time and we just couldn’t do anything. We were getting shut off notices, late notices on credit cards. Bills weren’t being paid.
“I hated to resign. I hated to leave those employees hanging like that, and the clients they served,” Westmoreland said. “I didn’t want to be associated with a program that was going to drag me down, or the department I worked for.”
Westmoreland had only been a board member since January. He feels the problems arrived with the new administrator. The bickering over the job Csukas was doing and employee resignations, along with the other problems were enough to prompt Westmoreland to throw up his arms and walk away.
“I would like to see a positive board get in there and work together to continue running Safe Homes. The program should be continued,” he said.
Attempts to contact Csukas were not successful.
