Help Wanted at Social Services

The Missouri Senate Appropriations Committee offered to give the Department of Social Services funding in the next budget to rehire 50 of the 200 workers laid off last year. The department’s acting director, Jennifer Tidball, said the agency is fine with the funding request to hire 11 additional staff instead. She said the department could not fill some frontline worker positions because not enough people are interested in those jobs. During a House Oversight Committee hearing, Lee’s Summit Democrat Keri Ingle said Tidball made the wrong decision.

Tidball said she prefers to use the funding to promote workers and hopefully retain them.