Saturday, October 16, 1999
Audit finds flaws at child agency
Butler levy is crucial, officials say
BY STEVE KEMME
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HAMILTON — A state audit of the embattled Butler County Children Services criticizes the agency for being understaffed, failing to recruit enough foster parents and taking too long to investigate cases.
The first phase of the audit, released Friday, comes less than three weeks before Butler County voters will decide the fate of a critical 2-mill Children Services levy renewal. The levy accounted for about half of the agency's $16.2 million in revenue last year.
The defeat of this levy would cause the agency to reduce counseling and diagnostic services and to run out of money by the end of next year, forcing the county to pay for state-mandated services out of its general fund, the audit says.
The county commissioners requested the audit by the Ohio Auditor's Office in May, after the second consecutive Children Services levy defeat. Voters rejected a 2-mill levy renewal in November 1998 and a 2.4-mill levy last May. As a result, the agency's executive director and his top assistant resigned in July.
County officials also had received citizen complaints that Children Services was operat ing in a cloak of secrecy and dismissed questions about its operations and decisions.
The agency serves abused, neglected and dependent children.
The second phase of the audit won't be completed until early next year, said Kim Norris, spokeswoman for the auditor's office.
Butler County Commissioner Mike Fox said the audit provides valuable direction on how to improve Children Services.
“It's thorough, fair and very helpful,” he said. “It has taken out a lot of the guesswork of where we need to focus our energy and resources.”
But the county's ability to carry out the audit's recommendations hinges on passage of the levy renewal, Mr. Fox said.
“If the levy fails, it will have a catastrophic effect on our ability to serve children in Butler County,” he said.
Children Services officials agree with the audit's findings and already have taken steps toward improvements, said Bob Bogan, agency spokesman.
“It's been very helpful,” he said. “But the levy is the linchpin for everything. We have to become financially stable before we can plan our future.”
The audit doesn't satisfy Dennis Yavorski of Bridgetown, whose group, Parents Responsible for Family Integrity, is spending $5,300 to place radio ads opposing But ler County's levy on WKRC-AM and WMOH-AM Monday through Nov. 2.
Mr. Yavorski's group believes the agency tramples on parents' rights and has wrongfully removed some children from their homes.
“A guy who robs a bank has more civil protections than a parent nowadays,” said Mr. Yavorski, who earlier this year received a $30,000 settlement of a lawsuit he filed against Hamilton County Children Services.
The first phase of the Butler County audit contains the following findings:
• Children Services caseworkers are handling too many cases.
The average caseworker had an ongoing caseload of 18 last August. This exceeds the state's recommended average of 13 and the average worker caseload in Lorain, Mahoning and Trumbull, three counties of comparable population size that were used for comparison purposes in this study.
Considering the county's large population of 331,000, the audit praises the agency for investigating 95.7 percent of its referrals in 1998 and for “providing a high level of service in response to community demand.”
But the limitations on caseworkers' time caused the agency to take more children out of their homes than might have been necessary, the audit says.
In some situations, the children could have remained in their own homes if the caseworkers had time to provide close monitoring and more counseling, it says.
The heavy caseloads also have slowed the agency's investigative process, the audit says.
• Butler County has too few licensed foster homes.
Figures for 1997 indicate that of the children placed in foster care, the agency sent 64 percent to private foster care providers.
It's more costly for Butler to place the children in private foster care than with licensed foster parents. In 1998, Children Services spent $5.7 million on private foster care agencies and $1.2 million on county-licensed foster homes.
Butler could attract more foster parents by increasing their pay and by expanding recruiting efforts, the audit says.
If Butler could reach a licensed foster home level similar to those in Trumbull and Lorain, it could save $600,000 to $1.4 million a year, the audit says.
• Children Services should “respond in a more open manner” to the public's request for information about its operations and services.
The agency should adopt a clear policy stating what kinds of information can be legally released. When state law prohibits the agency from releasing requested information about cases, it should offer a full explanation, the audit says.
• Children Services should make better use of computer technology to store case file data and improve the handling of cases. Its software is “outdated and cannot perform simple management processes.”
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