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AFSCME protests DCFS cuts

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* Budget cuts could mean more families are broken up…

For much of the past two decades, Illinois’ child welfare system has been hailed for its dramatic reduction in the number of children in foster care.

But with the state facing one of the most severe budget shortfalls in the nation, some fear cuts could reverse the trend.

Since 1990, the state has dropped more than 35,000 children from its foster care rolls to its current population of about 15,000. A variety of initiatives led to the decline. One prevention program named Intact has been widely credited with keeping thousands of at-risk children with their families and out of foster care.

But a $50 million cut by the Legislature to the Division of Children and Family Services enacted in August threatens to diminish the Intact program, raising protests among local court and police officials in Southern Illinois.

State officials said they had no choice but to cut back the program to serve fewer families and contract the services out to private agencies. The head of DCFS has said the move is likely to drive more Illinois children into costlier foster care while putting others at risk for abuse and neglect.

Others say it’s too early to tell whether more children will end up in foster care. Mark Testa, a former research director with Illinois DCFS, said policy changes and cuts such as these were being made nationwide because of budgetary concerns. Cuts in prevention programs may more adequately target needier families, or they may backfire, said Testa, now a professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

* AFSCME sent out this press release yesterday announcing a protest…

Facing a looming threat of more than 375 layoffs that would end the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) Intact Family program that intervenes to preserve families and prevent child abuse, DCFS employees and allies will demonstrate against the cuts at 12:15 p.m. TOMORROW (Wednesday, Sept. 19) outside the Thompson Center in Chicago.

Hundreds of DCFS workers carrying dolls that symbolize at-risk kids will hear remarks from fellow frontline employees describing their work to keep families together and protect at-risk children. At the conclusion of the short speaking program, workers will lay the dolls in front of an image of Governor Quinn and ask, “If we’re not here, who will protect the children?”

WHAT: Demonstration against Gov. Pat Quinn’s threatened layoff of 375 DCFS employees and elimination of Intact Family Services program
WHO: Hundreds of DCFS employees from throughout Chicago; short remarks by three DCFS workers, AFSCME Council 31 associate director Mike Newman, Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) staff coordinator Jackson Potter
WHERE: James R. Thompson Center plaza (corner of Clark and Randolph) in Chicago Loop
WHEN: 12:15 p.m. TOMORROW, Wednesday, Sept. 19
VISUALS: Crowd of hundreds of workers carrying dolls, supporters with colorful signs, 8 foot by 8 foot banner with image of Gov. Quinn under headline “Who will protect the children?”

If the layoffs go forward, Intact Family Services will be eliminated. Eligibility has already been curtailed and the few families that now qualify referred to private agencies that lack the capacity to adequately serve them. If the cuts are not reversed, more children will be harmed, more families pulled apart and more children forced into foster care, resulting in more taxpayer dollars expended.

DCFS employees and their union, AFSCME Council 31, are calling on the Quinn Administration to postpone the layoffs, now scheduled for Oct. 1, and urging the Illinois General Assembly to approve a supplemental appropriation to prevent the cuts during its veto session in late November.

* A photo from the rally. Click the pic for a larger image…

* Gov. Pat Quinn was asked about the DCFS cuts today. The governor reiterated his position that he tried to preserve DCFS funding with a $50 million veto of the prison budgets. Listen…

Click to download

Legislators with prisons in their districts are hoping to override the governor’s veto.

AFSCME is in the middle of a lousy argument here. Close prisons or cut DCFS? The union doesn’t want either. I’m not sure that’ll work.

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 1:40 pm

Comments

Check out the Chuck Sweeny article from this weekend on Singer Mental Health Center. It read like some local politicians were quoting union talking points speaking against closure, but it turns out they had no real understanding of Singer’s current role nor the plans in place to improve community mental health capacities as a result of its closure. I think what we have here with the DCFS cuts is not as severe as the union likes to lead on…

Comment by Waffle Fries Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 1:48 pm
80% of Child Welfare services are now being provided by the private sector which offers high quality services, generally at a lower cost. (Lower salaries to non-state employees who also don’t have the same benefits are just one of the reasons.) Another is that private agencies fundraise and supplement the reimbursement provided to the state.

There are some cuts to Intact, which is sad. But, many families will still receive these services. I think that state workers are really protesting that they are losing jobs, otherwise they would recognize that the same dollars go farther in the private sector.

Comment by Pandora Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 1:52 pm
Just want to reiterate, Intact Services are NOT being eliminated, they are being provided by other than state employees. That doesn’t diminish the need for adequate funding for youth in care or who are at risk of coming into care.

Comment by Pandora Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 1:54 pm
interesting that the service could be outsourced, more effectively and efficiently, when they were using organizations like Catholic Charities.

Comment by Downstate Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 1:54 pm
These DCFS cuts are just part of the decline in DCFS. I was told that the FBI is now refusing to process background checks required for all staff working with youth and new foster parent applicants because of serous problems at the DCFS central office. That means any of the hundreds of youth programs licensed by DCFS cannot hire employees to work with young people, because they cannot be background checked or that any new foster homes will be cleared for licensing . It’s a truly disgusting mess.

Comment by independent Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 1:58 pm
- interesting that the service could be outsourced, more effectively and efficiently, when they were using organizations like Catholic Charities. -

Of course you have evidence of this, right?

Comment by Small Town Liberal Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 2:05 pm
the unions are really putting a big emphasis on the tee shirt colors and coordination thing, first the teachers, now this.

Comment by Shore Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 2:24 pm
independent 1:58 PM

Source?

Comment by Anyone Remember? Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 2:26 pm
**the unions are really putting a big emphasis on the tee shirt colors and coordination thing, first the teachers, now this.**

Umm…this isn’t exactly a new thing.

Comment by dave Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 2:32 pm
The state has an obligation to take care of the disadvantaged, abused children and protect the safety of its citizens. The state should propose tax reform to tax the wealthy and corporations who do not pay their fair share. Those who are living the American Dream should have to pay for it!

Comment by billy Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 2:37 pm
Evidence is easy. Check out the rate for service paid to private agencies against the cost per unit of service provided by DCFS. There are stats available through the Child Care Association. I’m not sure why you think Catholic Charities is so inefficient in this regard, don’t forget that private agencies almost always supplement state funding with private fundraising, which helps reduce the cost to the state. We can discuss the ethics of that on another occasion, but yes, across the board private agencies provide services more cost effectively under purchase of service contracts than do state employees. That is just one of the reasons that most foster care, including all specialized foster care, and all residential, and transitional living services in the state are provided by private agencies.

Comment by Pandora Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 2:43 pm
The state has an obligation to take care of the disadvantaged, abused children and protect the safety of its citizens. The state should propose tax reform to tax the wealthy and corporations who do not pay their fair share. Those who are living the American Dream should have to pay for it!

Thank you Henry.

Comment by Give Me A Break Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 2:44 pm
Just from a optics standpoint, that rally looks so weak when you consider that last week whole parts of the city were shut down by the flood of teachers in red shirts. AFSCME needs more boots on the ground.

Comment by Raising Kane Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 2:45 pm
I am so tired of people saying people paying their fair share for taxes would fix all our problems. The State is billions of $ in debt - tax increase will not fix it. Did the last one? I don’t like cuts to services for kids either but find a real solution.

Comment by Patty T Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 2:48 pm
‘high quality services, generally at a lower cost. (Lower salaries to non-state employees who also don’t have the same benefits are just one of the reasons.) Another is that private agencies fundraise and supplement the reimbursement provided to the state.’

Always good to have low salaries with lower benefits. Who needs those pesky health insurance or retirement plans anyway. Golf tournaments and bake sales will make up the difference.

Comment by zatoichi Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 2:49 pm
Pandora - I’m not sure if you were responding to me, but I’m asking for evidence that it’s more efficient to outsource to Catholic Charities rather than other private providers, as Downstate implied.

Comment by Small Town Liberal Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 2:49 pm
Pandora, the Chicago Tribune published an article a couple of weeks ago about the Quinn cuts to Intact services saying 80% of the work was done by the state workers, only 20% by private agencies. The DCFS Director was quoted saying if they lay off these workers it will cost the state more because more kids will be in foster care. But hey, that’s the state-worker-loving Tribune and Quinn Adminstration talking, right?
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-09-04/news/ct-met-dcfs-intact-families-20120904_1_dcfs-cuts-dcfs-investigator-dcfs-director-richard-calica

Comment by Jeff Park Mom Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 2:50 pm
Wow! What a cynical bunch! I’ve been a foster for 23 years. i’ve worked with DCFS and seen the difference that those employees make in lives of children and helping to keep families together by providing services. i mean no disrespect to the private agencies, but they seem to get the the less complex cases. It’s the state employees who handle the tough cases and work to keep those families together. I wish you could see what I have for all these years.

Comment by anon Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 2:52 pm
Yes, it is cheaper to subcontract the services out to the private sector because of the salaries and benefits being lower, but the state should pay the cost to deliver these. Fund raised dollars should go to community services that there is nobody else there to help!

Comment by Proud Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 2:55 pm
The huge tax cuts that Quinn was “anxious” to sign for CME and other huge corporations dwarf the amount of money it would take to keep both our children and our prisons safe.
Thanks to the Quinn administration bungling we now have the most inmates we’ve ever had.
Quinn is an unadulterated disaster for the state. Oh, and he is a hypocrite, too.
He cuts taxes and then says there is no money for services

Comment by truthteller Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 3:08 pm
Truth: You may be referring to millions (not sure what their 12 profits will be) of dollars but the state is billions in debt. Did the income tax hike work? No. Tax increases will not fix all these problems.

Comment by Patty T Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 3:27 pm
~The state has an obligation to take care of the disadvantaged, abused children and protect the safety of its citizens. ~

Socialist.

Comment by Cheryl44 Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 3:29 pm
===Did the income tax hike work? No. ===

Yes, it did. The idea was threefold. One, to eliminate much of the structural deficit with the tax hike, then use cuts to eliminate the rest of it. They really screwed up by punting on Medicaid last year, so that had to be taken care of this year.

The third component was using part of the tax hike to fund a bond to pay off the overdue bills. The GOPs blocked it.

So, yeah, what’s been implemented has basically “worked.”

Comment by Rich Miller Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 3:35 pm
Tribune:

“Without us, vulnerable and needy families will be left without what is sometimes the only support they have,” said Sharon Moriarty-Cordin, who said this is the fourth time she’s faced a layoff in her 12 years at DCFS. …

In the crowd, tears streamed down Rhonda Rodgers’ face. After 19 years with the agency, Rodgers said she has enough seniority to survive the layoffs. She predicts vulnerable children will be left without any safety net.

Nearby, Tammy Harvey, another longtime employee, held a doll that workers use when interviewing children as a tool to demonstrate abuse.

“I do have hope, because that’s the kind of person I am,” she said through tears. “I always say this job is like a calling. You really have to care about people and want to help them to make the change that will keep their family together.”

[A]t least 1,500 fewer families will receive intact family care, the Tribune has reported, a 33 percent reduction that DCFS Director Richard Calica predicts will force more children into foster homes. …

Last year, 4,600 families received intact family services, with state workers handling 80 percent of the cases while the remaining 20 percent were referred to private agencies.

Due to the budget cut, DCFS plans to lay off all state intact family workers and direct private agencies to handle all future cases.

To limit the number of families receiving the services and still maintain a reasonable workload for the private agencies, stricter criteria to be eligible have been developed.

Protesters said the new criteria will leave many vulnerable families ineligible.

“We pray that someone will hear us because, right now, Gov. Quinn isn’t listening,” said Letreurna Packer, a DCFS intact supervisor. “And we need to be heard. A baby shouldn’t have to die for the system to change its protocol to give services to intact families.”

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-dcfs-workers-plead-to-protect-intact-family-services-20120919,0,6845558,full.story

Comment by Reality Check Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 4:26 pm
In a $33.7B budget, $50 million represents about .14 percent.

If state employees are doing this important job better with Intact, can’t we just roll with it? This ain’t some pork project, and it’s not like the kids have a lot of options.

Comment by wordslinger Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 4:32 pm
Actually, 60% of Intact families were serviced by DCFS and 40% by POS agencies. Originally there was the plan to shift more to POS agencies anyway over a three year plan but that got derailed with the additional budget cuts so then it was to move 100% to be serviced by POS. The reduced eligibility for access to Intact services is pretty severe- Only children ages 0-6 years old; or other pretty limiting categories- none of which I agreed with but it is what the administration decided upon. So suffice it to say that a child who is 14, autistic and mom is mentally ill, both homeless, who has a medical issue that renders her incapacitated to care for her child and there is no family- there are no services. This just happened this week. The court refused custody and returned the child to the mother when she got out of the hospital.

DCFS is very different in various regions in the State. Outside of Cook County, many more of the Intact cases were with DCFS not POS- way over 60%- maybe that’s where they came up with the 80%.
In ironies of all ironies, the person in charge of the entire redesign just got bumped out of his position- so we will see how well this goes.

Independent- you were informed incorrectly about the FBI. There was an FBI audit and there were recommendations that need to be further addressed. The specifics of which I cannot discuss- but one thing is what specific information can be given based upon current laws- which there appears to be a discrepancy between the Child Care Act and the Adoption Act. That will require a legislative change that will not be able to be addressed until the spring session since the veto session is coming too soon to do anything. That being said, the FBI is still processing background checks.
The background check situation(for foster care/adoption only- I can’t speak for employment or daycare) coming to a screeching halt has little to do with the FBI but more to do with the fact that the person who was solely in charge of processing such retired this week and even though there was a three month notice, they have not found a replacement- so even if this person got approved the 75 day contract(which was already drafted and sent for approval as of early last week)- there is no one to train to carry on.

Also to give people a little perspective on the lay-offs- it was not done by seniority. It really depended upon which office, which region and which position you held. There were people on the list who have worked for the State for 25-40 years that received notices yet there are pages of people who have been hired within the last two years that did not receive notices- including people who have hire dates of June 2012.(The seniority list of all DCFS employees is listed on the DCFS webpage for all with internal access to link in to see/print just like the layoff/vacancy meeting list was last month)
The layoff and bumping has been a complete mess mostly because this has been a communication(or lack thereof) nigtmare with numerous misteps. The dates keep getting pushed back- it is now Oct 16- Downstate maybe much later(I’m hearing November) because the layoff list/vacancy list was incorrect and had to be re-done.

Comment by carbaby Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 4:44 pm
Wouldn’t the legislature have to meet again to restore the DCFS monies. Or can Quinn “find” some money elsewhere. In any case, it looks like the most that could happen before October 1, less than two weeks away, is a delay of the layoffs. We’ll see.

Not all of these layoffs involve employees of the intact program, as I understand it. Some result from a badly-needed consolidation of administrative and back office functions in a agency that needed to go on an administrative diet. Let’s hope those go forward regardless. Government as even our governor has acknowledged, is not a jobs program.

Still, in the midst of layoff threats mostly affecting the front lines, Quinn and Calica’s fondness for expensive contracts for former cronies and breathtaking raises for Calica’s executive staff members seems a bit tacky. Romney-esque, one might say.

Comment by cassandra Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 4:49 pm
It’s about damn time. AFSCME seems to have left this issue in the “to do later” box compared to the time and energy they have put into keeping prisons open.

Comment by state worker Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 5:28 pm
cassandra,

Quinn could find the money if he wanted to; I believe that is where part of the IDOC prision closing savings were supposed to go.

The back office consolidation has been ongoing at DCFS for at least the past two years; I know the person coordinating it. It takes a lot of planning to make it happen without impacting regional service. The whole layoff / bumping process is making a mess of the gains that were made; there are going to be a lot of people trying to do jobs they are not familiar with.

Comment by RNUG Wednesday, Sep 19, 12 @ 10:05 pm