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The man who has been serving as the interim director of the Department of Children and Families for the past six weeks got the job permanently Tuesday. Governor Charlie Crist named George Sheldon to the post. Sheldon has worked for the department since January of 2007. Since then he has seen unprecedented improvements in the department’s performance. Sheldon said the challenge is to keep improving the department with a tighter budget.

“This is a tough budget year we recognize that so what we have to do is be more efficient in the agency. For instance we are overhauling our hotline protocol to make sure that those things that are referred for investigation in the field are the more critical,” said Sheldon.”

Sheldon, 61, served in the state legislature from Tampa from 1974 to 1982. He ran unsuccessfully against Charlie Crist in 2000 and again in 2002.