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Majority of kids in child care due to parents' drug addictions

The Herald-Dispatch - 5/24/2017

IRONTON - The majority of kids under the care of the Lawrence County Department of Job and Family Services are there because their parents have drug problems, according to Rich Blankenship, deputy director of the county department.

The county is looking for more foster parents, Blankenship told the Lawrence County Board of Commissioners during a meeting Tuesday.

He said 45 of 68 children in custody are there because their parents have drug problems.

The county is among 19 in Southern Ohio participating in a two-year pilot program to add an additional case worker to work with the children of drug-dependent individuals, Blankenship said. The program is scheduled to start in October, he said.

The county also could be in line for an additional $100,000 or more for foster care costs, he said. The appropriation is in the Ohio House version of the budget currently being reviewed by the Ohio Senate, Blankenship said.

The board also heard from Common Pleas Judge Andy Ballard that officials are looking into requiring parenting classes in court orders in drug cases involving parents.

Meanwhile, the cost of dealing with overdose patients on drug-related runs is about three times more expensive than non-drug-related runs, according to Earl "Buddy" Fry, director of the county Emergency Medical Services district.

The office, which covers county ambulance runs, had 125 drug overdose runs during December, January and February.

The county received about $33,000 in payments and reimbursements for the non-drug-related runs compared to $13,252 on overdose runs.

"It's a big financial cost to the county," Fry said. "Taxpayers make up the difference."

The board also heard from Larry Pernesti, who was concerned that a contractor for the Ohio Department of Transportation will close Ohio 141 about four miles north of Ironton for a month starting Tuesday, May 30.

Pernesti wants at least one lane of the state road kept open during the construction.

The board agreed to send a letter to the department's Chillicothe, Ohio, office asking the road not be closed completely during the culvert replacement project.

The $572,575 culvert replacement project is being done by DGM Inc. of Beaver, Ohio. The Works Project Administration-era bridge near Sugar Creek school was the site of a fatality several years ago, according to Kathleen Fuller, a spokeswoman for the department.

"The closure is necessary because of the work being done," Fuller said after the meeting. "We have no place to put the traffic."

Pernesti said about 5,000 vehicles use that section of Ohio 141 each day.

"We want a bypass," he said. "We don't want the road closed."

He said a similar project that was supposed to last for a month ended up lasting four months.

He's concerned about the closure causing delayed response times for ambulances and fire trucks.

Sheriff Jeff Lawless supports the move to keep one lane of the road open during construction if possible.

Residents seeking to use Ohio 93 to avoid the Ohio 141 closure also will have to deal with delays along Ohio 93 as part of a $1.56 million paving project along a 10.5-mile section of the road.