Jody Walker told Ohio lawmakers in June 2025 that his agency could not say no. “We are ordered custody – and we cannot say no,” said Walker, director of South Central Ohio Job and Family Services. A year later, 16 children were found in a Vinton County home, and his warning has come back into view.
WSYX, reporting for ABC6 On Your Side, said investigators described the children as having been kept in a small room, some near death and none attending school. They were rescued in June 2026. The case has put fresh scrutiny on how Ohio pays for child welfare, at a time when costs are climbing and agencies say they are struggling to meet their legal duties.
A warning a year earlier
Walker told lawmakers during budget testimony that investigations, removals and placements were already straining his agency. “Because we cannot say no, we are required to find placement or risk children sleeping in the office, which happens at least once per month in my agency,” he said.
He oversees a three-county region that takes in Vinton, Ross and Hocking counties. The numbers he gave were stark. The cost of care in his department rose 152%, from nearly $4 million in 2015 to more than $10 million in 2024. Yet the average number of children in custody each month barely moved, holding at about 185.
What lawmakers did
Despite those warnings, lawmakers cut millions from the proposed budget last year, WSYX reported. The state did raise funding for child protections by $35 million. But it trimmed the overall family and children services budget by $12 million from the governor’s initial request.
At an Ohio Controlling Board meeting on July 13, 2026, Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney, a Democrat from Westlake, questioned how the situation could have lasted so long. “I don’t know how anyone could say that this going on for as long as it did … that our systems are working as needed,” she said. She added: “I think we’re all culpable for allowing this to happen for so long and it’s all of our jobs to make sure it never happens again.”
The bill for the children
This week the state approved $1 million in emergency funding for the Vinton County victims and signaled that more could follow. The expected cost is large. Therapeutic care alone for the 16 children is estimated at up to $120,000 per month, which comes to nearly $1.5 million over the next year.
