WHEELWRIGHT – The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services Department for Community Based Services has moved out of its Wheelwright office, and the decision has one magistrate asking questions.

The office has been officially closed since November.

The agency helps people with various aspects of welfare, including, most significantly, food stamps and medical-related assistance.

Susan Power, service region administrator for the Eastern Mountain Service Region, spoke to county officials late last week.

“We’ll do everything in our power to do the best we can for our clients,” she said. “The county was absorbing some $13,000 a month to keep this location operational, and we’ve all withstood this for 10 years.”

The office opened a decade ago with the goal of increasing the number of clients reached throughout the southern region of the county. However, Power says few than two dozen accounts had been opened in the past five years at the location.

But one of the key issues, according to Power, has been the condition of the building. Citing problems with water damage and a rash of snakes in the building, Power said it had become an issue of putting both employees and clients at risk at the location.

“What was feasible to have seen it stay open?” asked Magistrate Donny Daniels, who represents citizens in the Wheelwright area in his duties. “I thought the vision up there was to alleviate some of the caseload on the Prestonsburg office. I just don’t know what exactly you wanted from the site.”

Power and her associates contend that the key purpose was not to solely take caseload work from the Prestonsburg office, but to extend services to other parts of the county. She told county leaders last week that many of the residents in the southern part of the county were still traveling to Prestonsburg for help.

In addition, new federal regulations will allow residents in other parts of the county to call by phone to have their services, including food stamps, a concern for Daniels, who asked about this aspect of the program in particular this past Friday.

Daniels also offered several options for keeping the office open, including funding from the county, but was told that it did not seem as if that was an option at this time.

“I don’t think we will be,” Power answered when Daniels asked what could be done to bring the offices back.

As a result, city leaders in Wheelwright have asked that the building be deeded back to the city, a request that prompted Floyd County Judge-Executive R.D. “Doc” Marshall to offer up an official recommendation during the fiscal court’s regular meeting to give the building back to that community.

“I’m recommending to this court that we deed back the building to the city of Wheelwright,” Marshall said in his motion, which carried this past Friday. “Let them have advantage of it. It’s their heritage.”

All cases that were being handled at the Wheelwright office will now be sent back to the Prestonsburg office, Power said.

“We didn’t want to cause any undue hardships on any of our people that participated in this program,” Marshall said. “I just want the people to know we have made every effort to maintain that agency, but due to their standards they have chosen to relocate their people to Prestonsburg.”

Power said that approximately 50 percent of Floyd County residents were currently receiving help from the agency in one form or another.