The board considered at least two candidates in a closed-door meeting Sept. 19 before voting 3-2 to have the chief executive officer negotiate a final contract and salary with Bobby Cagle, the director of the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services.
Supervisors Kathryn Barger, Hilda Solis and Sheila Kuehl voted for Cagle, while Supervisors Janice Hahn and Mark Ridley-Thomas voted for Jooyeun Chang.
Cagle’s appointment still must be finalized by the board, according to County Public Information Officer Joel Sappell.
Previous director Philip Browning retired in January, leaving Brandon Nichols as acting director.
Cagle has run Georgia’s child services department since being appointed by Governor Nathan Deal in June 2014. Prior to that, Cagle served for three and a half years as a commissioner for the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning.
A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Cagle also has a masters in social work from that university.
He began his post-graduate career handling child welfare cases. Then he spent eight years as a probation officer and manager for the state’s Department of Corrections and Division of Community Corrections, respectively, before taking his first post at DFCS, according to his LinkedIn profile.
A 2015 news release by the agency noted that Georgia’s DFCS provides child welfare and economic assistance programs serving 1 in 5 Georgians annually, administers a $1.2 billion budget and oversees the work of more than 7,300 staff in 159 counties.
Los Angeles County’s DCFS has a 2017-18 budget of roughly $2.5 billion and more than 9,300 budgeted positions. Cagle did not respond to a request for comment.
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