Gov. Tina Kotek late Friday placed the longtime director of the Oregon Youth Authority on administrative leave amid a comprehensive review of the agency’s handling of abuse complaints involving youths in state custody.

The governor’s announcement about Joe O’Leary, who has held a leadership position with the youth authority for more than a decade and has served as director since 2018, came one hour after The Oregonian published a story about the review, which began last month.

That review also prompted the official in charge of handling misconduct complaints at the youth authority, Raymond Byrd, to abruptly resign in January, the agency confirmed Friday.

The developments come as the youth authority confronts a half-dozen federal civil rights lawsuits alleging staff members abused underage youths and young adults in custody. The claims also accuse supervisors of failing to intervene and report abuse.

The youth authority is part of the state’s juvenile justice system. It oversees about 900 youths and manages nine locked facilities.

Ken Jeske, an Oregon Department of Corrections administrator who previously worked at the youth authority, was brought in to carry out the top-to-bottom review of the four-member Professional Standards Office, said youth authority spokesperson Will Howell.

The unit, created in 2006, investigates allegations of staff misconduct, including “ethics/boundary/relationship issues” and provides reports on the nature and disposition of “all youth safety complaints,” the website says.

The youth authority declined to provide a copy of the latest complaint report, saying it first needed to be reviewed by the Oregon Department of Justice.

The unit fields an average of 710 reports a year.

The youth authority posts information in its detention centers about the complaint process, encouraging youths to report abuse to the Professional Standards Office through a hotline and assuring them that all allegations are investigated.

On Jan. 16, Jeske delivered his initial findings about the unit’s handling of investigations to O’Leary, Howell said.

Later that day, O’Leary met with Byrd, who had served as chief of investigations for the Professional Standards Office since 2018, according to the agency’s statement.

O’Leary planned to place Byrd on paid administrative leave based on Jeske’s review, the agency said. Byrd submitted his resignation that day, records show.

Byrd, whose annual salary was $128,900, did not respond to messages Friday.

Howell declined to release Jeske’s findings. He also declined to release data about complaints, including the number under review by Jeske, whether the Professional Standards Office opened investigations into those complaints and how they were resolved.

Jeske’s review, however, apparently entails enough work that the youth authority has sought outside help to pore over the complaints.

The agency brought one of its former investigators out of retirement and plans to ask investigators from the Oregon Department of Human Services to help with “a select number of cases.”

It is unclear what type of cases human services investigators will be tasked with reviewing; Howell said he did not know.

Howell said Jeske has triaged cases, ensuring “that investigations have begun on reports that are of the highest priority.”

O’Leary informed Kotek’s office about the review and Byrd’s resignation in January, Howell said.

O’Leary receives an annual salary of $225,342.

The Oregon Department of Administrative Services is conducting a separate human resources investigation into the Professional Standards Office, a youth authority spokesperson said.

The department declined to explain details of that inquiry.

Jesse Merrithew, whose firm is representing the plaintiffs in the federal cases, said more than a decade ago, the agency lacked policies to protect young people from abuse. Today, it has strong policies, but they aren’t enforced, he said.

“What they say they do in response to any complaint of abuse from anyone is very good,” he said. “It’s exactly what we want to see happen. The problem is they haven’t been doing it.”

He said the Professional Standards Office is the “arm charged with investigating these things and protecting the youth that are incarcerated there and there is actually no evidence that they’re doing anything.”

He said “the buck should stop” with O’Leary.

“It’s not good enough for the head of an agency to simply adopt policies that look good on paper,” he said.

Juvenile justice advocates have called for the creation of an ombudsperson to oversee the state’s youth correctional facilities to ensure youths are not subjected to abuse by staff.

Thaddeus Betz, a lawyer who directs the Oregon Justice Resource Center’s Youth Justice Project, on Friday described the agency’s systems for keeping young people safe as “inadequate.”

The nonprofit provides legal services to people in custody and lobbies lawmakers for improved prison conditions.

Betz said young people’s well-being and safety should be the youth authority’s priority since the agency plays a “quasi-parental” role.

“You essentially have to look at what (the Oregon Youth Authority) is doing from the framework of: how would you care for your own children?,” he said. “And you wouldn’t leave them in circumstances where this much abuse is rampant and evidently unchecked or not adequately checked.”

Kotek was notified of the internal review in January, according to the youth authority spokesperson.

Complaints “must be taken seriously and addressed expeditiously,” said Kotek in a statement released by her office Friday. “A backlog is unacceptable. Oregon youth in the state’s care rely on us to keep them safe and get this right.”

O’Leary’s leave is effective immediately, Kotek’s office said.

Kotek appointed Jana McLellan, the agency’s interim deputy director, as acting director.