Child and Family Services watching closely as Legislature considers cuts

Jan. 29--HELENA -- In his State of the State address Tuesday night, Gov. Steve Bullock led off with a compelling piece of imagery: a worker for Child and Family Services out on a call late at night.

The Democratic governor referenced CFS, a division of the Department of Public Health and Human Services, again later in his speech, chiding the Republican-controlled Legislature over a pitch to trim its budget.

"It doesn't make sense to me that you have proposed to cut workers from our Child and Family Services Division -- the people on the front lines of helping kids in harm's way," Bullock said.

The work done by Child and Family Services has become a flashpoint over the last several years as the division has struggled to deal with increasing and more difficult workloads, record numbers of children in state care, and high turnover among staff.

But the division has done significant work over the last year -- enacting many internal changes and bringing on new leadership -- to turn things around and better communicate the work it does. Things weren't quite primed to be the partisan football it seemed Tuesday night until a shrinking state budget interjected itself into the situation.

The Joint Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee, the budgetary gatekeeper for the health department, turned heads earlier this month when it made the decision to consider cutting the department's budget by $93 million over the next two years. That's a 15-percent reduction over the last biennium and on top of cuts proposed by Bullock.

Just shy of $1 million would come out of Child and Family Services. The division was given $76.1 million to operate in fiscal year 2017. The reductions come mostly from not filling empty positions.

The governor's plan also trims about $1 million from the division in the form of vacancy savings and other cuts, though overall Child and Family Services would end up with about $15 million more from a proposed boost of $16.6 million to deal with increased caseloads and children needing guardianship and foster care. Under Bullock's proposal, the department would have about $84 million each fiscal year for the next two years.

Leadership at Child and Family Services is scheduled to make presentations to the appropriations committee Wednesday. That's the division's opportunity to plead their budgetary case to the five committee members. The following day will be public testimony, then the committee will make its budget decisions about a week later.

Not surprisingly, Child and Family Services is hopeful it can avoid as many of the reductions as possible.

"I think any cut to Child and Family Services is going to be problematic, given the caseloads that our staff have," said Bob Runkel, economic security services branch manager at the health department. He served as interim administrator for Child and Family Services after former administrator Sarah Corbally departed in March. New administrator Maurita Johnson started in November.

Discussions about Child and Family Services, perhaps more so than other state-run operations, often end up at one conclusion or another:

--The division is underfunded and needs more money to do its important work of keeping children safe; or

--For too long the division has gotten more and more money without any checks to see that the funds are being put to good use.

The nature of the division's work means its decisions are almost always under scrutiny. It's hard to keep all parties happy when part of the job could include removing a child from their home and parents. But over the last several years, critics have become more vocal.

The department has struggled to deal with an increase of children in care -- in 2008, there were 1,507; by 2015 there were 3,179. Methamphetamine use by parents has fueled the number of severe child abuse cases and fatalities. At the start of the 2017 legislative session, the Child and Family Ombudsman released a report saying 14 children died after reports of abuse or neglect last year.

"It's clear it's a funding problem, a staffing problem, a training problem," said Rep. Jessica Karjala, D-Billings, a member of the Protect Montana Kids Commission. "We have been too fiscally conservative in funding this department for too long. And as a result, now what's ended up happening is what I would call a perfect storm of drug epidemic."

She added she's worried that because of the division's struggles, it could be a target for "punitive-type damages."

Putting more money into the division would result in cost savings for other state branches, such as the judicial system and corrections, Karjala argued, by catching and working with families and children before their situation turns into a legal case.

But Rep. Ron Ehli, R-Hamilton, who was chair of the Joint Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services in the 2015 session, said he wanted to see more from the division to show it's using the money it receives in the best way possible.

"I absolutely disagree there's not enough money," he said. "We budgeted them higher in the last legislative session than they've ever been budgeted before. They've been given money that had never been in the mix."

In fiscal year 2017, the division was appropriated $76.1 million; in 2014, $65.6 million; and in 2010, $59.4 million.

"Don't just come asking for new money and don't just coming asking for a bunch of new programming," Ehli said. "We're going to be pretty adamant looking at those numbers, because it's -- again -- it's just not always about money; it's about making effective programming."

While the two positions might seem to not mesh, Runkel said both sides have a point. "I think in any complex system there's a little bit of truth in each of those positions."

An example, Runkel said, is a stressor like staff turnover. The division could end up spending more money -- in this case because children would possibly be in care longer due to changes in staff handling their cases -- costing the state more.

Rep. Albert Olszewski, R-Kalispell, sits on the joint appropriations committee. He said the Legislature and committee will be pushing the division on specifics.

"You have an executive branch that says, 'Give me more revenue, just give me more money. My budget will take care of it,' and this side (the Legislature) saying, 'Well, wait. Tell us what's your plan for the money and be specific about it, because we'll give it to you, but be specific in how you'll spend it.'"

Olszewski said the division comes into the process this session with an advantage over years past -- in the form of recommendations from the Protect Montana Kids Commission.

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The division has implemented about 35 recommendations made by the commission. Changes range from equipping every staff member with a mobile tablet and smartphone to streamlining supervision. One of the main changes was to re-align the job of the division manager to directly oversee regional administrators, who manage field operations. Runkel said this has been a positive change.

There's also a slew of legislation recommended by the committee being carried by both Republicans and Democrats, meeting bipartisan support so far. Legislators have mostly said that the issue can't be politicized, with a general mood that it's a bad idea to score political points when the lives of children are at stake.

One of the more prominent bills carried by Rep. Kathy Kelker would create a child abuse and neglect review commission.

The 17-member commission would review any fatalities or near-fatalities in cases involving child abuse and neglect. A previous bill was brought last session but failed over concerns about child privacy and what agency would have oversight.

Kelker said this year's bill, 13 pages instead of the three pages it was in 2015, is a beefed-up version and "the only one I'm really desperate to get passed."

She thinks the amount of money it would take to operate the commission is "relatively small in comparison to the enormity of this problem" and stressed the cost-savings potential.

For these types of bills, sponsors say that the added costs will save money in the future by creating a more streamlined and responsive division.

"My argument is you have to have good data, and it has to be objective. And that's the commission's role. And you need that before you can decide how much you're going to spend and where it best needs to be expended," Kelker said.

Rep. Kim Dudik, D-Missoula, is carrying several bills, among them one to create more pilot projects to look at working with families who come into contact with Child and Family Services before they go to court. The bill passed the house with a 99-0 vote even with a $75,000 fiscal note attached.

The bill would revive a pilot project approved last session that is meant to let division employees work with children and families on treatment plans before having to file a court case.

Dudik said many of the bills looking at Child and Family Services this session will save the state money down the road. But there's also a greater intent.

"We save money, but we also improve the fabric of our community and of our state. So it has the fiscal benefits as well as the social benefits, and that's usually where Republicans and Democrats align. We want to get to the same results, possibly for different reasons, but we do want to work together on those things. I'm hopeful those kinds of arguments are persuasive."

No matter the outcome of this session, the new division administrator said employees will continue to work toward improvement.

"We can do this work and we will do this work, regardless of what ends up budgetarily (in) the end," Maurita Johnson said as she entered her third month on the job. "I think it's a matter of just keeping our focus on this and our legislative mandate and moving forward."

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