JUVENILE JUSTICE

Director of Youth Services to resign

Steele departing after year in job

The director of the state Youth Services Division said Tuesday that he will leave his post at the end of next month, a little more than a year after he was hired.

Tracy Steele, a former state senator who became the division's director in August 2013, will resign on Oct. 31 to "take advantage of a career opportunity that he will announce at a later date," according to a statement released by the Arkansas Department of Human Services.

In an interview Tuesday, Steele declined to say what he will be doing after he leaves the division or whether it involves the juvenile-justice system or activities related to the Youth Services Division's mission.

"I really just have another opportunity that's just kind of been in the developmental stage and just recently I was at a point where I had to make a decision," he said.

Steele did not give a formal letter of resignation to the Human Services Department, which oversees the Youth Services Division. He informed Human Services Deputy Director Keesa Smith and Human Services Director John Selig during meetings last week.

Smith, Steele's current supervisor, will serve as interim Youth Services director while the agency searches for his replacement.

The announcement of Steele's departure comes as monitors with a federally funded nonprofit continue to investigate allegations of misconduct at the state's largest youth lockup, which is operated by Florida-based contractor G4S Youth Services.

His departure also comes shortly before Arkansans will elect a new governor to replace Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe, who leaves office at the end of the year.

And the division is to host a conference on juvenile justice in October, at which it is expected to unveil recommendations for changes that would require action by the General Assembly during next year's legislative session.

Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample said the governor was going to let the department work through what comes next in terms of hiring a new director.

"It's a DHS decision, but of course you're going to want someone in that position," DeCample said. "It's not a position that you are going to want to leave open because of everything that the department is responsible for."

Steele's salary was $100,077 when he was hired to replace Ron Angel, who served as division director for six years before retiring in June 2013. Before Angel, the division went through eight directors in 10 years.

The Youth Services Division director oversees the state's residential facilities that house about 500 youths subject to court-ordered treatment as well as community-based programs for hundreds more juvenile delinquents across the state. The division contracts with outside groups for the majority of its services.

On Tuesday, Justin Nickels, spokesman for the Disability Rights Center of Arkansas, said Steele's resignation would not affect the group's work at the Arkansas Juvenile Assessment and Treatment Center near Alexander, where monitors continue to investigate allegations of staff misconduct and unsafe conditions.

The group's monitors went into the youth lockup earlier in the summer after a near doubling of assaults were reported at the campus, which houses about 100 of the state's most behaviorally troubled youths.

In 2013, the lockup reported 327 assaults compared with 165 the year before. Last month, the disability rights center issued a report saying that youths at the lockup had reported that staff members had offered rewards for youths carrying out assaults against their peers.

"We look forward to working with the interim director and hope that there's new-found momentum on making sure kids in the juvenile justice system are getting the treatment that they deserve," Nickels said.

Legislators on the House and Senate committees that deal with the Youth Services Division and the Department of Human Services said Tuesday that they were surprised by Steele's resignation.

"I didn't get a heads-up about it. I haven't even gotten an email or anything of that nature," said Rep. David Meeks, R-Conway, the chairman of the House Committee on Aging, Children and Youth, Legislative and Military Affairs.

"As far as his term in [the Youth Services Division], we just got a report about everything going on there, but I didn't see anything negative about him in that report."

Rep. John Burris, R-Harrison, chairman of the House Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee, said he didn't know many details, but he had heard about Steele's resignation.

"I trust John Selig," Burris said. "He'll make whatever decision he wants to make there.

"I don't know that the department would go through a search right now and go through the process of finding someone to fill the position. Especially because anyone who would be hired would come in not knowing if they'll have that position in January," when a new governor takes office.

In a statement, Selig said Steele would be staying on for the next few weeks to ease the division's transition to another director.

Selig particularly thanked Steele for staying long enough to oversee the Arkansas Juvenile Justice conference at the Arlington Hotel in Hot Springs on Oct. 28-30, the first such conference the division has held since 2010.

"Tracy arrived at DYS and very quickly identified a need for more prevention programs for at-risk youth in our state. Since then, he and his team have worked diligently to find solutions," Selig said in a statement. "He's also had a strong working relationship with community providers."

Steele declined to say what he and Selig discussed when they talked about his decision to resign.

But neither Beebe's departure nor the ongoing investigation at the lockup near Alexander factored into the decision, he said.

"These problems were here long before I got here, and I knew I would have to be dealing with that. The problems at the Alexander campus, these problems are not new. I never took it personally that it was part of my leadership," he said. "Some things were discovered since I've been here, but they haven't just started this year."

Since the rise in assaults became public, Steele said he's pushed to hire three additional contract monitors to oversee the agency's contract providers. He's also worked to add requirements that the contractor pay closer attention to the number of assaults, injuries and other such incidents and correct problems that arise, he said.

"I'm proud to say that on our watch that no child has been seriously harmed or worse. That's something that we all can be proud of," he said. "Have we had challenges? Sure ... but for the most part, our kids are in safe childhood environments, and there hasn't been anything that's been major."

When asked what he meant by seriously harmed, Steele said he was comparing his time with the agency with past years when as a legislator he would hear of children being rushed to the hospital from Alexander and committing suicide in the juvenile facilities.

No child has died or been seriously injured during his year at the division, he said.

Steele said he didn't have any regrets at the agency and noted that he was proud to have worked with the division's staff to restore funding from the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Over the summer, the division distributed more than $530,000 in grants from the federal agency to programs in Arkansas aimed at keeping youths out of the court system.

Madelyn Keith, the president of the Arkansas Youth Service Providers Association, said she was saddened to hear that Steele is leaving.

"I believe that given the opportunity and support needed, Tracy could have led DYS and our state in some productive reform efforts," wrote Keith, who is the executive director of East Arkansas Youth Services in Marion. The nonprofit contracts with the state to provide community-based programs for youths.

Steele leaves the agency after more than 15 years working in some role with the state's juvenile justice system.

Steele was first elected to the state House in 1998, serving two terms before being elected to the Senate in 2002. He served in the Senate from 2003-10, when he was elected to another term in the House. He was term-limited from running again for that seat in 2012.

In his time in the Legislature, Steele was chairman of the House and Senate committees that oversee the Youth Services Division and worked on a number of issues that would later overlap with his work as director. He sponsored a bill, that later became law, to provide human services workers in schools.

He also proposed several bills involving the Youth Services Division that failed, including a bill seeking to define the relationship between the agency and the community-based youth service providers who contract to treat at-risk youths.

After leaving the General Assembly, Steele made an unsuccessful bid in a crowded race for North Little Rock mayor in 2012. He lost in a runoff against current North Little Rock Mayor Joe Smith.

About six months later, he was named Youth Services Division director.

A Section on 09/24/2014

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