Lawmakers grilled the new head of the Arizona Department of Child Safety Wednesday during a lengthy debate over an audit of the agency as lawmakers ultimately decided to recommend reauthorizing the agency for just four years instead of the maximum 10.
As part of the periodic sunset process for state agencies, lawmakers are tasked with evaluating and determining how long a state agency’s operations should continue before the next review. State law limits extensions to 10 years, but lawmakers have historically extended state agencies for eight years at a time — a figure that coincides with legislative term limits.
After more than five hours of testimony during a sunset review hearing, something all state agencies face at least once a decade, lawmakers landed on a four-year continuation, much to the dismay of some lawmakers who wanted shorter and longer continuation periods.
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DCS was created in 2014, amid controversy over how the state was handling large caseloads and cases that were found to have been not investigated. At the time, the work was handled by Child Protective Services, which was a division of the Arizona Department of Economic Security, and DCS was created by the legislature as part of a series of reforms to child safety.
Sen. Sonny Borrelli, R-Lake Havasu City, contended that DCS has operated under “lackadaisical leadership” and suggested that the agency be reauthorized for only two years.
“Every two years, we are reapplying for a job,” Borrelli said of himself and other lawmakers, who stand for election every other year, adding that DCS should be held to a similar standard. The idea was first put forward to the committee by Sen. David Farnsworth, R-Mesa, who spoke to the joint committee during the public testimony part of the meeting.
Farnsworth, a believer in the QAnon conspiracy theory that believes a Satanic global cabal trafficks children for sex and torture, has long contended, without evidence, that DCS is complicit in missing children and has alluded to the agency taking part in sex trafficking. Farnsworth previously admitted to the Arizona Mirror that he did not fully grasp the statistics on missing children he was citing.
Farnsworth, who chairs the Senate Committee on Transportation and Technology, recently announced that the committee will now add “Missing Children” to its name and priorities.
Democratic members pushed back on the idea of extending the agency for less than the standard eight years, worrying about the workload it will create for the Arizona Auditor General, which performs an audit of state agencies before every sunset review, and what that could mean for the budget’s of DCS and the rest of the state.
“Are we going to quadruple the [Auditor General]’s budget?” Senate Democratic Leader Mitzi Epstein wondered, adding that a two-year continuation would mean state auditors would need to once again start investigating DCS right away and move on from other scheduled audits of other state agencies.
But Republican critics of the agency said that was a trivial concern.
“I am more concerned about missing dead and abused children than the Auditor General’s workload,” Rep. Barbara Parker, R-Mesa, said.
Audit finds oversight lacking
This is the very first sunset review of DCS since it became a stand-alone state agency.
Auditors focused on a few key areas during their investigation, with an emphasis on how the agency oversaw licensing of foster and group homes, as well as a new document management system that was recently implemented.
One area of the audit focused on how DCS handled complaints against foster and group homes, and the auditors discovered some deficiencies. In particular, they found it could take up to 100 days for the agency to investigate some complaints, including a complaint that an employee of a group home assaulted another employee before fleeing, all in front of the children present.
Auditors found that DCS had issues regarding oversight of group homes and their slow pace to investigate put children in danger. One example given that lawmakers took exception to was an employee who was found to have been giving marijuana to children in the group home.
DCS took over 100 days to investigate. The facility had other previous complaints as well.
And the auditors concluded that DCS was wary of any major discipline or doling out punitive measures to foster and group homes because the agency was worried about losing placements for children. The department also did not conduct unannounced visits to the facilities and instead relied on a “corrective action plan” in which the group home or foster home promised to correct the action.
For example, DCS found that the group home where an employee was giving out marijuana had done enough to correct the issue because it had fired the employee.
The department has since started doing quarterly monitoring visits after auditors flagged the lack of oversight.
Auditors found that the “culture” around not wanting to lose a group home, issues with the departments in house document monitoring system, a lack of written policies and a lack of internal supervisory oversight led to the issues.
DCS agreed with the findings and told auditors they would implement changes.
DCS has only recently changed leadership, with DCS CEO David Lujan stepping into the role approximately six months ago. Lujan, a former lawmaker and a child welfare advocate, was appointed by Gov. Katie Hobbs.
Lujan avoided the Director Nomination Committee which had previously grilled and not recommended several Hobb appointees as the Governor announced she’d be no longer sending nominees to the new committee last year.
Parker contended that any policies put in place by Lujan could be legally challenged because he is leading the agency without being approved by the Arizona Senate. Senate Republicans are suing Hobbs over her decision to evade Senate confirmation.
Parker also voiced dismay that the options to terminate, revise or consolidate DCS were not presented to her, and she was only given the option to reauthorize the child welfare agency.
“So I vote no to any continuation,” Parker said.
Lujan acknowledged the challenges the agency faces and the history of problems with child welfare in Arizona.
“We still have a lot of challenges and we still have a lot of things to address,” Lujan said, directly addressing that the department has not fully implemented or started implementing several key recommendations from previous audits prior to his tenure.
The agency is creating special task forces to look into procedural changes and how they can react better to certain circumstances such as child deaths and recommendations by the auditor general.
Lujan also touted accomplishments the agency has made in addressing other concerns, such as a backlog of over 96,000 documents that were lingering in its document collecting system.
“I can say that, a year ago, there were 96,000 documents in a portal, and those documents have now all been disclosed,” Lujan said. When asked, Lujan said that there was only one case he was aware of that was impacted by the issue and it is unclear if the new documents will change the outcome of the case, Lujan said.
Both lawmakers and DCS agreed that moving more toward placing children with family members, also known as kinship placement, is a better option than placing them in foster or group homes. The department is currently working on creating a program to help families navigate the kinship placement system in order to create better outcomes especially as the state continues to lose foster homes.
While lawmakers Wednesday did not fully agree on the continuation period or how to help the agency continue to grow, one thing was universally agreed upon: Protecting Arizona children is key.
Committee Chair Sen. T.J. Shope, R-Peoria, said that he understood the points of both his fellow Republicans who wanted a shorter timeframe and Democratic members who wanted to give the agency more time to course correct.
“These things have a history of repeating themselves,” Shope said, reminding committee members of a similar situation that occurred during Gov. Bruce Babbitt’s tenure more than 40 years ago. Shope said that he’d never argue for the termination for DCS, adding that “in this case we just have to do a better job.”
Auditors will follow up with DCS in six months and provide the legislature with an update on their progress.