State Representative Barbara Boyd (D-Cleveland Heights) introduced Ohio House Bill 201 on May 3, 2007. The legislation, co-sponsored by Representatives Skindell, Williams S., and Miller, would reestablish the Welfare Oversight Council. According to the legislation the council would advise the Ohio General Assembly on the performance of the Department of Job and Family Services, county departments of job and family services, child support enforcement agencies, and public children services agencies. The council could also submit recommendations to the general assembly for any changes in law that the council considered necessary or appropriate.

The original Welfare Oversight Council was created in response to welfare reform and its members traveled around the state learning about how welfare reform was being implemented at the local level. State Representative Boyd was one of the original members. In a report that I wrote for the Brookings Institution last year I observed that the Welfare Oversight Committee was regarded warily by some at ODJFS and some local departments of Job and Family Services were even less enthused, and over time it met less and less. When original legislative members like former Rep. Bob Netzley and Representative Boyd left the legislature because of term limits the committee gradually lost steam and its charge was eventually repealed by the legislature in 2003.