The Jayhawk Area Agency on Aging is getting a new leader at the top.

Jennifer Magyar is joining the agency’s board of directors. Douglas County commissioners intend to approve her appointment this week as a replacement for Shirley Harkess, whose second three-year term expired at the end of September.

“We’ve had some really good people on the board, but the problems at the agency call for a fresh approach and new ideas,” said Charles Jones, County Commission chairman.

The agency, which oversees state and federal funds to elderly residents in Douglas, Shawnee and Jefferson counties, also is looking for a new executive director. The resignation of Maria Russo, after leading the agency for eight years, is effective Nov. 30.

The agency’s directors will be deciding who gets the job.

“We need some new people on that board,” Commissioner Bob Johnson said.

In recent months, commissioners received documents from an ousted board member — Jim Snyder, who had been appointed by Shawnee County commissioners — that Snyder said indicated a pattern of employee discontent at the agency. Snyder also complained that money that should have been used to serve elderly residents instead was being used to pay rent on the agency’s building in Topeka.

Advocates for the elderly in the area have complained that clients often faced an ever-changing line of case workers, because employee turnover was so high.

Jones expects Magyar to help reinvigorate the agency, which runs on an annual budget of $2.5 million.

Senior services agency draws criticism for employee turnover (10-4-04)

“We need new blood,” Jones said.

Magyar is training and outreach coordinator for the West Central Missouri Area Health Education Center, where she helps underserved elderly residents of Kansas and Missouri understand the Medicare drug-discount card. She recently relocated to Lawrence from Chicago, where she was a medical social worker for inner-city elderly residents and worked as program coordinator for executive health and University of Chicago Hospitals.

Magyar’s education includes a Bachelor of Science in psychology and Master of Public Administration from Northern Michigan University, and a Master of Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago.

Earlier this week, commissioners — thinking they had two board vacancies to fill — voted to appoint both Magyar and Marsha Goff, a writer and longtime community volunteer, to the agency’s board of directors. They soon realized their mistake, and are scheduled to reaffirm Magyar’s appointment during their upcoming meeting at 6:35 p.m. Wednesday at the county courthouse, 1100 Mass.

Goff already is a member of the agency’s tri-county advisory council, having been appointed to the post in December. She has served on the board of directors of the United Way of Douglas County.