Nashville, Tenn. (AP/WMOT) — The commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Children's Services has resigned amid scrutiny of how her agency was handling it cases.
It was revealed recently that an alarming number of children had died in 2012 while either in DCS custody or the subject of DCS abuse investigations.
Gov. Haslam announced O'Day’s resignation this morning with a press release. Just last week, the Republican governor had defended O'Day's leadership.
State Rep. Sherry Jones has been calling for O’Day’s resignation for some time. Jones says she was alerted to problems at DCS when the number of people calling her office about the agency began to spike last year.
“Three or four cases, in my office, a day now. I never had numbers like that, of people calling me about DCS and how they handled cases and how children were abused and children that died and what I needed to look at."
The Health and Welfare Committee of the Tennessee State Senate is set to begin hearings into problems at DCS tomorrow.