Numbers presented by DCF officials to a panel of lawmakers Friday show that social workers carry an average caseload of 17.7 — up from 15.5 cases per worker a year ago.
“My view is we certainly do need more resources within DCF to support our child protection function,” DCF Commissioner Ken Schatz told VTDigger on Friday, after a Joint Legislative Child Protection Oversight Committee hearing.
The hearing came one week after the Agency of Administration, responsible for assembling the governor’s proposed state budget, notified department heads to plan to level-fund their budget for the next fiscal year.
Secretary of Administration Justin Johnson encouraged state departments to be “extremely cautious and restrained” in a letter last month.
But Schatz and lawmakers see an increasing need for social workers and other support staff for family services in Vermont.
Cindy Walcott, DCF deputy commissioner, told lawmakers Friday afternoon that, according to numbers from late August, there are more than 1,350 children in DCF custody. According to Walcott, the trend has largely been driven by a substantial increase in the number of children under age 6.
The issue is not just a matter of providing adequate resources to support social workers, Schatz said. He sees a need to bolster the myriad players that comprise the entire child protection system, including the courts.
In the upcoming the budget process, Schatz said he will work with leadership in the Agency of Human Services and the Shumlin administration to address the issue.
Security concerns
In the wake of the killing of DCF social worker Lara Sobel last month, the state is stepping up security procedures to ensure better security for social workers.
Schatz told lawmakers that since Sobel’s death DCF employees have reported 17 threats made against them.
Public Safety Commissioner Keith Flynn told lawmakers that his department is taking threats against social workers seriously. Instead of accepting threats against AHS workers as “part of the job,” Vermont State Police are adopting a proactive response, at times sending troopers to the client’s door.
Last month, St. Johnsbury police arrested a man for making threatening comments against DCF; on Friday, a Waterbury woman faced charges in U.S. District Court for allegedly buying a gun and threatening foster parents. On Saturday, a woman attempted to flee the state with her granddaughter after DCF tried to take the four-year-old into custody.
Sen. Anthony Pollina, P/D/W-Washington, questioned Flynn during the hearing about whether the effort to crack down on threats against child safety and other human services field workers will require additional resources.
Flynn said demands on law enforcement are increasing, especially those related to opiates and heroin.
“One of the things that I really hate to do is to prioritize public safety services,” Flynn said after the meeting, noting that he considers public safety to be a core function of government.
Flynn said that he does have some concerns about failing to provide adequate resources to special investigative units (SIUs), which undertake investigations into cases involving children and sexual abuse around the state. Meanwhile, the department expends most of its efforts on opiate and heroin addiction cases.
However, Flynn said that there are times when he believes the department can make changes that save money and improve service. He pointed to the controversial decision to close two public safety answering points during the fiscal year 2016 budget process.
“My job is to take a really serious look at my budget and do what I can to meet their goals,” Flynn said.
After the hearing, Pollina told VTDigger that he has a sense of déjà vu in legislative conversations about the child protection system.
“We can talk all we want about sympathy for social workers and the need for training, and lament the horrible things that have been happening,” Pollina said after the meeting. “But the bottom line is if we’re underfunding the staffing for those services, we’re going to continue to harm not only the kids but the workforce.”
Johnson said in an interview Friday that the direction to department heads to prepare to level-fund is an early step in the long process of putting together the budget. The administration will weigh developments in child protection and other areas, rather than imposing a “cookie cutter” budget, he said.
“There will be some areas where we have to prioritize new funding or extra funding,” Johnson said, noting that child protection and other human services may wind up seeing an increase in money next year. “It doesn’t mean that we end up with everyone with a level-funded budget.”
Johnson said that the impact of opiates in Vermont will likely be a topic of discussion in the budget-drafting process, but noted that the process will come with some difficult decisions.
“If there was an easy answer to the problem of opiates destroying families in Vermont, then we’d be all over it tomorrow,” Johnson said.
