DCFS director steps down

By Jamey Dunn

Arthur Bishop, acting director of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, resigned today after recent negative reports about his past.

Earlier this month, the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago public radio station WBEZ reported that Bishop pleaded guilty to stealing from clients of a social services agency where he worked in the 1990s. The story also said Bishop has a biological daughter who claims that he has not been a part of her life. “He’s supposed to be protecting the kids of the state — and you’ve got a kid out here you never done anything for,” Erica Bishop, who is 27 years old, told WBEZ in an interview that aired today. “He left me as a father, which I think that’s unfair to me and it’s unfair to my kids. ... As far as them wanting to keep giving him higher positions to look over people’s kids, I don’t agree.”

Gov. Pat Quinn tapped Bishop for the job earlier this year after the death of former DCFS Director Richard Calica. Bishop started working at DCFS in the 1990s. He most recently served as the director of the Department of Juvenile Justice before being chosen to head DCFS. Bishop had not yet gone through a Senate confirmation hearing. Quinn’s office declined to comment on the resignation. The governor reportedly chose DCFS administrator Bobbie Gregg to serve as acting director.

Juvenile Justice director returns to DCFS

By Jamey Dunn

The director of the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice is returning to his former employer, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Service, this time to lead the agency.

Gov. Pat Quinn announced this afternoon that Juvenile Justice Director Arthur Bishop will be director of DCFS. Bishop started working at DCFS in the 1990s and rose to the post of deputy director of field operations. He took over at the Department of Juvenile Justice in 2010 for former director Kurt Friedenauer, who resigned after Quinn announced a desire the merge the two agencies. Legislation was passed and signed into law by Quinn in 2010 to allow the two agencies to share some resources, but a full merger has yet to be realized. “Arthur Bishop is a long-standing public servant who has dedicated his professional career to helping Illinois families,” Quinn said in a written statement. “I am confident that he will carry out the mission of the department by making the safety and well-being of children across the state priority number one.”

Bishop will replace former DCFS Director Richard Calica, who died in December. Calica resigned in November after being diagnosed with cancer. “I appreciate this new undertaking from Gov. Quinn and for the continued opportunity to serve our state,” Bishop said in a prepared statement. “Every child deserves a safe environment, and there is no greater responsibility than keeping our children out of harm’s way. I am eager to work with department staff to ensure we carry out the mission of protecting and serving the youngest residents of our state.”

Both Child and Family Services and Juvenile Justice have faced their share of troubles in recent years. DCFS was violating a federal consent decree by having too few front-line investigators and had awarded millions of dollars to contractors for work that could not be verified. Calica oversaw a rebalancing of staff in an effort to come into compliance with the federal court order. That change added 138 new front-line investigators and cut caseloads in half. However, DCFS still has its problems. During the last fiscal year, child deaths from abuse or neglect hit a 30-year high in the state, according to an investigation by the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ Chicago. A recent U.S. Department of Justice survey found that 15 percent of respondents had experienced sexual assault while detained by the Department of Juvenile Justice. The agency is in the process of entering into a legal agreement to make improvements in the areas of areas of education, mental health treatment, use of solitary confinement, safety and after care provided once offenders are released. Juvenile Justice department Chief of Staff Era Laudermilk will become acting director of the agency.

Former DCFS director dies

State officials announced today that Richard Calica, former director of the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services, died early today.

Calica, 67, resigned from DCFS last month after being diagnosed with cancer. He said in an interview with the Chicago Tribune at the time that doctors had told him he had only months to live.

Calica came into the job at a difficult time for DCFS. The agency was violating a federal consent decree by having too few front line investigators and had awarded millions of dollars to contractors for work that could not be verified. Calica was a social worker for much of his career and served as executive director of the Chicago-based Jane Addams-founded Juvenile Protective Association. He oversaw a rebalancing of staff in an effort to come into compliance with the federal court order. That change added 138 new front line investigators and cut caseloads in half. “It has been the most exciting, rewarding and hopefully productive part of my career,” Calica told the Tribune after he stepped down. 

“It is with great sadness today that we announce the passing of Richard Calica, a true public servant in the state of Illinois. Richard Calica was a dedicated advocate for our most vulnerable children. He always put their safety and well-being first,” Gov. Pat Quinn said in a prepared statement. “I send my condolences to Richard’s family and friends. They are in our thoughts and prayers during this most difficult of times.”

For more on Calica, see this profile from Illinois Issues June 2012.

DCFS director steps down

Richard Calica, the director of the state’s troubled Department of Children and Family Services, announced today that he is stepping down from the agency because of health concerns.

According to a news release from Gov. Pat Quinn’s office, Calica, who has been diagnosed with cancer, has resigned his position. DCFS Chief of Staff Denise Gonzales is now acting director. “It’s been an honor and a privilege to serve under Governor Quinn,” Calica, who has served as director since 2011, said in a prepared statement. “This has been the most exciting and rewarding time of my career in child welfare. The reforms that we’ve put in place will maximize this agency’s ability to ensure the safety of children who are at risk of abuse and neglect for years to come.”

Calica came into the job at a difficult time for DCFS. The agency was violating a federal consent decree by having too few front line investigators and had awarded millions of dollars to contractors for work that could not be verified. Calica was a social worker for much of his career and served as executive director of the Chicago-based Jane Addams-founded Juvenile Protective Association. His blunt nature sometime ruffled feathers during his time at DCFS. He oversaw a rebalancing of staff in an effort to come into compliance with the federal court order. That change added 138 new front line investigators and cut caseloads in half. However, DCFS still has its problems. During the last fiscal year, child deaths from abuse or neglect hit a 30-year high in the state, according to an investigation from the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ Chicago.

Calica plans to work with DCFS on its transition to new leadership. “My prayers are with director Calica and his family during this very difficult time,” Quinn said in a prepared statement. “Director Calica has taken this agency in the right direction, and he always put the safety of our most vulnerable children first. We are deeply grateful for his dedicated public service, which has saved countless lives.”

Form more on Calica, see this profile from Illinois Issues June 2012.

Illinois Senate approves more budget bills

By Jamey Dunn

Illinois Senate Republicans supported legislation today to spend unexpected tax revenue on the state’s old bills but rejected the rest of a budget plan crafted by Democrats of both legislative chambers.

Education spending, which the Senate approved Wednesday, passed without Republican support, and the vote totals for the rest of the about $35 billion Fiscal Year 2014 budget looked the same today. The one exception was that most of the Republicans in the chamber voted in favor of a measure that would put an unexpected income tax revenue windfall toward the state’s stack of unpaid bills. House Bill 206, the supplemental appropriation that would pay down bills this fiscal year, now heads the Gov. Pat Quinn. The education budget bills — Senate Bill 2555 and SB 2556 — await a vote in the House. The legislation also includes the payments to debt service, employee health benefits and pensions.  “I think it’s a responsible use of the additional billion dollars that came in from income tax,” said McHenry Republican Sen. Pamela Althoff.

House and Senate Democrats crafted the budget this year after cutting Republicans out of talks a few weeks ago. Here’s a breakdown of the bills:

HB 208 is the operational spending for state education agencies, as well as some higher education costs, including student aid.

HB 213 is human services funds and Medicaid spending.

HB 214 is general services spending, the General Assembly’s budget and the constitutional officers' budgets.

HB 215 is public safety and transportation spending, Illinois Department of Corrections budget, capital construction spending for the next fiscal year and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources budget.

The bills give some lump sums to state agencies to allow for flexibility in funding programs and personnel costs. Sponsors said the hope is that agencies can manage spending and meet the requirements of the new public employee union contract, which includes pay raises. However, the proposal does not include funding for previous raises still owed to state employees. Democratic Sen. Heather Steans of Chicago said $60 million is in an escrow account that can be used to start to pay down those wages. But she said she does not know of any immediate plans to pass a supplemental bill explicitly for the back pay. A representative from Quinn’s budget office said during a Senate budget committee hearing yesterday that the administration does not plan to provide all the back pay without a supplemental spending bill because it would likely require layoffs, something Quinn’s office says he wants to avoid.

Quinn and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees are backing a spending bill to cover the back wages, but as of today, the bill is sitting in the House, still on second reading. It could not pass in its current from before tomorrow's adjournment deadline. However, the measure could be drafted into a different bill and still make it through by the end of the day tomorrow. “There is strong bipartisan support in the General Assembly for HB 212, the supplemental appropriation to pay wages owed to caregivers, correctional officers and other state employees dating back nearly two years,” said Anders Lindall, a spokesman for AFSCME Council 31. “Public servants shouldn’t have to wait a day longer for the wages they earned, and Illinois taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay another penny of interest or legal costs incurred by the state’s continued failure to fulfill its responsibility to its employees.” The raises were not paid to workers in 2011 because Quinn said that lawmakers did not approve the funding for them.

Sponsors of the budget plan said that paying off bills this fiscal year with the additional revenues would make next year’s budget less painful. They said the spending for next year fully funds programs and agencies and will keep them from having to budget from crisis to crisis, as has been the case during the past few years. “We should not have any providers getting notices next June that they’re not going to be getting payments,” Steans said. Such notices went out to childcare providers last year and providers of in-home care for the elderly this year. In both cases, lawmakers approved additional spending late in the fiscal year to keep the programs afloat. The budget would reduce many human services operations by 3 percent from Quinn’s proposed budget. Grants would be cut by 1 percent from the budget introduced by Quinn, but many areas, such as community mental health, would be shielded from the reduction. The Department of Corrections would see a $70 million increase that supporters say was needed to avoid further prison closures.

Republicans complained that the rest of the budget does not reflect their priorities and that funding went to programs without proven results. They hit on $1.5 million included for a program that is a perennial target for their criticisms: Grow Your Own Teachers. Republicans said the program, which works to encourage minority residents to become teachers in the state, is too expensive and pointed to historical statistics that show that the bulk of enrollees drop out before receiving teaching certificates.

Democratic Sen. Dan Kotowski of Park Ridge acknowledged the past problems with Grow Your Own Teachers, but noted that it has improved its stats. He said that after the program was unable to show lawmakers that its results justified its spending line, they program was cut and restructured. He said now the graduation and placement stats are better. “When we said to them last year, your data isn’t good enough they came back” with improvements, Kotowski said. “We’re seeing progress as a result of the policy decisions and the changes that we made here as a byproduct of the appropriations process.”

Republicans said the money would be better spent on K-12 education or restoring some of the Medicaid cuts made last year. “Including things like this in this budget undermines the credibility of the budget overall because they lead to the conclusion that the budget is more of a political document than it is an outcomes-based reflection of priority,” said Sen. Matt Murphy, a Palatine Republican.

Quinn signs spending bill

By Jamey Dunn

Gov. Pat Quinn signed a spending bill today that will avert layoffs in the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and restore funding to mental health providers. But opponents said it is too costly and was rushed through the legislative process.

The Senate approved House Bill 190 today. The measure contains about $1.5 billion in spending. The Department of Children and Family Services will get $25 million. Without the money, DCFS says it would have to lay off two-thirds of its staff. The measure also restores $12 million that lawmakers said was supposed to go to mental health services but did not because of a budgeting error. “As a result of today’s action, hard-working employees at the Department of Children and Family Services will continue their critical work of protecting vulnerable children who have been abused and neglected,” Gov. Pat Quinn said in a prepared statement.

The law also calls for more than $700 million in capital construction funds for roads, bridges schools and other projects. Republicans were critical of some of that spending, calling it “pork.” They said that Democrats moved the bill through both legislative chambers too quickly. The House approved the measure on Tuesday. “One of the things we see around here on occasions is, when we rush ourselves, mistakes get made, and I think this is a classic example of that occurring. There are some pieces in here in this package that I think everybody in this chamber can support. But when we rush through ... we see mistakes made,” said Palatine Republican Sen. Matt Murphy. Republicans were also upset that money was taken from the Road Fund for costs other than construction, such as employee health insurance.

But sponsor Sen. Dan Kotowski, an Oak Park Democrat, said some of the funding, such as the money for DCFS, could not wait. He said lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been meeting about the issue. “These discussions have been ongoing for the past few months.” He pointed out that the bill is not new spending and instead draws from the governor’s budget vetoes, previously budgeted construction projects and money in various state funds. Kotowski pointed to a fiscal analysis, known as a note, on the legislation, which says: “The bill provides for no new revenue sources, nor does the bill require any additional state spending. This bill does not directly have any significant fiscal impact. The supplemental appropriation to the Department of Central Management Services for group insurance was expected to be included in the Fiscal Year 2013. Therefore the fiscal impact to the General Revenue Fund is negligible. Supplemental appropriations provided from other state and federal funds are provided on the basis of the availability of moneys in those funds.”

House OK's funds for DCFS, mental health, construction

By Jamey Dunn

The Illinois House approved new spending for the current fiscal year that would avert layoffs in the Department of Children and Family Services and restore funding to mental health providers.

House Bill 190 calls for about $53 million in spending from the General Revenue Fund. Sponsor Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, a Chicago Democrat, said the money would come from Gov. Pat Quinn’s budget vetoes and revenues that exceeded estimates in the budget that lawmakers passed in the spring. Currie estimated about $58 million is available from those sources. DCFS would get $25 million, which would allow the agency to defer layoffs. Without the money, DCFS has claimed it would have to eliminate to two-thirds of its staff. The legislation also contains $12 million that lawmakers who worked on the human services budget say was accidentally cut from mental health funding.

“There’s nothing new, unusual, strange or odd about this bill. Those of you who care about mental health funding in the community, this is your chance to say, 'Yes, here is the $12 million we thought we already gave you.’ Those of you who want to see to it that there is staff in the Department of Children and Family Services to answer the hotline, $25 million goes into this budget for staff at DCFS,” Currie said. The bill also contains more than $700 million in capital construction funding, including money for bridges, roads and museums.

Some Republicans argued that unnecessary spending was attached to sympathetic causes, such as DCFS, in order to push it through. “I am so tired of the other side of this aisle telling me I don’t care about anything. I’m sick of it,” said Elmhurst Republican Rep. Dennis Reboletti. “What I care about are the people of the state of Illinois, and funding the things that we need to fund and prioritizing them. ... Just because I don’t vote for this bill doesn’t mean I don’t care.”

Hinsdale Republican Rep. Patti Bellock said she wanted to support the funding for DCFS and mental health. “A lot of us have concerns, especially about the mental health funding, because we realize that that was a mistake in the original budget process. A lot of us have concerns about DFCS because we don’t want to see children hurt by the programs that might be deleted.” But Bellock said she was worried that supporters of the plan may have overestimated what is available and that other costs might spring up as Quinn continues to close state facilities. “There are a lot of concerns that the numbers are not correct, even in the major portion of the bill in the general revenue fund.”

House panel approves new spending for current fiscal year

Jamey Dunn

Layoffs at the Department of Children and Family Services and cuts to mental health providers would be avoided if a measure approved by a House committee today makes it to the governor’s desk.

House Bill 190 would spend about $53 million in general revenue funds during the current fiscal year. The money would come from Gov. Pat Quinn’s budget vetoes and revenues that exceeded estimates used to plan the budget lawmakers passed in the spring. “There may be as much as $58 million [in additional funds],” said Chicago Democratic Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, who sponsors the bill.

The proposal contains $25 million for the Department of Children and Family Services. The money would help take the sting out of a $90 million cut that lawmakers approved in the spring and would allow DCFS to avoid laying off thousands of workers. When Gov. Pat Quinn vetoed money for correctional facilities that his administration has since closed or is in the process of closing, he called on lawmakers to redirect the money into DCFS. Quinn supports HB 190. The measure also contains $12 million for mental health care providers. Legislators who worked on the human services budget in the spring say they intended for providers to get the money, but the funds were not available because of a budgeting error. “We’re strongly committed to this appropriation amount,” said Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, the former chair of the human services budgeting committee in the House.

HB 190 also includes $675 million for capital construction projects. Illinois Department of Transportation Secretary Ann Schneider said the state got more federal money than expected, and revenues were higher than IDOT projected when planning its budget. “We normally put that financial plan for our highway program together about 18 months in advance, and so revenues in Fiscal Year '12 came in higher than what we programmed on.” Rep. Louis Arroyo, chairman of the public safety budgeting committee in the House, said he was unhappy that money would be pulled from the road fund. “When we sit down in my committee, nobody wants to touch the road fund, nobody wants to talk about the road fund. It’s like a sacred cow. ... So now you’re saying there’s extra money there. I didn’t know there was extra money there. There a lot of avenues that I would like to spend that road fund money on or move it over to different avenues rather than take it for this project.” He said he was uncertain about the “last minute ... funding resources that are popping up somewhere” to support the supplemental appropriation.

The measure also contains $620 million for the group health program for state employees. Currie said that in the spring, lawmakers had only appropriated for half of the cost of the program because they hoped Quinn’s administration could achieve savings through negotiations with union leaders over a new contract for state workers. But an agreement has not been reached on a contract, and Currie said it is time to put the rest of the money into health care coverage so payments to providers are not further delayed. She said that health care providers are currently waiting up to a year to be paid for treating state workers. “That really is about half of what we expected to spend. We held it back because we were hopeful that there might be savings in the group health program. They haven’t materialized. We think it’s important to go ahead and pay the bill.”

 

DCFS faces massive layoffs if additional funding is not approved

By Jamey Dunn

Lawmakers hope to get additional funding approved for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, but if they fail, the department will lay off two-thirds of its staff in a few months. 

When Gov. Pat Quinn vetoed money for prisons and other state corrections facilities from the budget approved by the General Assembly, he called on lawmakers to put that money into DCFS to prevent hundreds of layoffs. The same budget cut nearly $90 million from DCFS. Legislation to put some of that money back never made it to a floor vote during the January lame-duck session. The measure up for consideration contained other budget items that met opposition. However, Chicago Democratic Sen. Heather Steans, who sponsored the bill, said she thinks there is support for passing an additional $25 million for the agency early in the new legislative session. “I do think there’s general agreement on the DCFS funding,” she said. Chicago Democratic Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, the former chair of the House Human Services Budgeting Committee, agreed. “I think that there is a relatively strong commitment to do this.”

If the money does not come through, DCFS plans to lay off nearly 2,000 employees this spring. “The answer to the what-if questions is that if the budget cuts are not restored, that sometime in March or thereafter we will have to lay off about two-thirds of our staff statewide,” said Dave Clarkin, a spokesman for DCFS.

DCFS currently has about 600 investigators; Clarkin said the agency hopes to avoid laying off any of them. “It’s a primary responsibility of the department. It is something that by statute can’t be outsourced or done by anybody else,” he said of the investigators’ work. The department is restructuring its staff in an effort to put more than 100 additional investigators on the front line.

The possibility of mass layoffs comes after a year when DCFS saw in increase in abuse- and neglect-related deaths, and a spike in the number of downstate abuse cases. According to DCFS, neglect or abuse played a factor in 90 deaths last year. The department is still investigating 60 other cases. “Once those investigations are closed, we will have seen the highest number of deaths we have seen in Illinois in 32 years,” Clarkin said. “Child abuse generally and sex abuse in particular are both on the rise.” From July 2012 to October 2012, the department's abuse hotline received 25,348 reports of suspected abuse, compared with 24,053 during the same period in 2011. Last year, 35 downstate counties had abuse and neglect rates of more than double the statewide average. Cook County had rates just below the state average.

Suffocation by neglect was the leading cause of death in cases the department investigated in 2012. The second leading cause was abuse, and the third was inadequate supervision. “Most deaths occurred when parents, ignoring the advice of the American Academy of Pediatrics and safety experts, slept with a newborn or infant in their bed, rolling over on the child in the night and smothering her or him. In other instances, parents ignored safety warnings and allowed a newborn or infant to sleep with a blanket, on an adult mattress or couch, or on their stomachs, suffocating the child,” a prepared statement from DCFS said. Clarkin said the department is making efforts to educate the public on the proper sleeping conditions for newborns, as well as ways to prevent child abuse and neglect in their communities.

Lawmakers keep busy on the second day of veto session

By Jamey Dunn

During a busy veto session day today, lawmakers voted to override Gov. Pat Quinn’s budget vetoes, approved a bill that would require publicly traded corporations to share some tax information with the public and passed a resolution that could bar the way for pay raises for public employees.

Budget vetoes
The Senate voted to override some of Quinn’s changes to the budget they approved in the spring. Quinn signed the budget sent to him by the General Assembly, but he vetoed $19.4 million that was included to run the state’s only super-maximum security prison, located near Tamms, and the $21.2 million included to operate a women’s prison in Dwight. In addition to the prisons, he plans to close three transition centers meant to help inmates reenter society. Quinn also cut $8.9 million for a youth prison in Joliet and $6.6 million for a youth prison in Murphysboro. The chamber approved putting funding back for the corrections facilities.

“Our prison population is at an all-time high, our prisons are severely overcrowded and our staffing levels are down,” Sen. Gary Forby, who called for the override, said in a prepared statement. Tamms is located in Forby's district. “I hope that today’s Senate vote sends a clear message to the governor that he needs to stop fighting us on this issue. He needs to use these funds to manage the overcrowding of our prison system and ensure the safety of employees and inmates.”

The governor has been lobbying lawmakers to uphold his changes. “I had to make those vetoes in order to have money for the Department of Children and Family Services, and also because we can’t be spending millions of taxpayer’s dollars on prisons and juvenile justice camps that are half empty and in one case totally empty,” Quinn said. “The concept that we’re going to keep open Murphysboro, which is a juvenile justice camp, at a cost of millions of bucks and then take away money from neglected and abused children is I think really upside down. So I hope we prevail. We have two [chambers], and we’re going to fight hard in both places to uphold my decision.” The bill will now go over to the House.

Quinn is under no obligation to spend the money even if the General Assembly votes to restore it. However, he cannot spend the money elsewhere, such as on DCFS costs, without the approval of lawmakers.

DNR funding 
After a failed attempt at the end of the spring legislative session to approve revenue to fund the state’s struggling Department of Natural Resources, the bill passed in the Senate today. Senate Bill 1566 would increase vehicle registration fees by $2, which would bring the cost of registration for a standard passenger vehicle to $101 annually. The proposal would also allow the DNR to charge out-of-state visitors park entrance fees and charge all visitors access fees for certain park features, such as beaches and horse trails. A previous plan of charging entrance fees for all park visitors was scrapped in lieu of the proposed increased vehicle registration fee. “If you live in Illinois and you have an Illinois plate, it’s open season. Go to any park you want to,” Hutchinson said of the plan the last time it was up for a vote. The measure has already passed in the House, and a Quinn spokesperson said the governor plans to sign the bill.

Republicans who opposed the bill said that the Quinn administration chose to underfund DNR and spend the money on other programs.

Corporate tax info 
The Senate approved Senate Bill 282, which would require publicly traded corporations doing business in Illinois make some tax information public.

Senate President John Cullerton, who sponsors the bill, says that the measure is meant to help legislators make more informed tax policy decisions. “It’s not a gotcha to the business community. It’s actually something that helps us have a better tax structure.”

Under the proposal, corporations would submit tax information such as their incomes, tax liability and tax credits they receive to the secretary of state. The information would not be made available to the public until two years after the information is filed. At that time, it would be available to the public through a searchable online database.

Leaders of business organizations have balked at the idea of having to release information they say is private. “I think tax information is proprietary and confidential and should not be publicly released,” said Mark Denzler, vice president and chief operating officer of the Illinois Manufacturers Association. “The reaction from the business community ... has been pretty reflexively negative,” said Palatine Republican Sen. Matt Murphy. He said that he recognizes that Cullerton is not trying to hurt businesses, but he said, “I think at its core it sends the wrong message.” Murphy called on Cullerton to compromise with businesses.

Cullerton said business groups have not come to him with any suggestions for compromise so far, but he said he hopes that might change. “Sometimes, people’s willingness to negotiate increases after it passes one chamber.” The bill has an influential House sponsor in Chicago Democratic Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie and also has the support of Quinn.

Cullerton said he is open to changes being made to the bill in the House. “If there is some reason why some of these things that we’re asking to be disclosed should not be, and there’s a rational basis for that, I can take it out.”

State workers pay raises 
The House approved a resolution stating that it will not include money for state employee pay raises in the Fiscal Year 2013 budget, which takes effect in July. House Speaker Michael Madigan, who sponsors House Joint Resolution 45, said it is “a clear message from the House, to both the negotiators, both sides, that we don’t see room for salary increases. We just don’t see it.”

Quinn is currently negotiating a new contract with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Quinn said today that he told the union there is no money for raises under the new contract. “I honor the workers all the time. I have never said anything other than I really appreciate their public service. At the same time, if the state has these severe financial challenges, we’re all going to have to realize that that’s the reality and we’re not going to be able to have raises.” Union officials say the resolution undermines collective bargaining.

Anders Lindall, spokesman for AFSCME Council 31, said the union has offered to forgo pay increases in 2013 in exchange for concessions from the state. “In reality, state employees have voluntarily done more than anyone to help the state close its budget gap — agreeing in 2010 and 2011 to unpaid furlough days, wage deferrals, health plan changes and other concessions that saved the state more than $400 million, and offering in the current round of negotiations to accept no pay increase in 2013 as part of a comprehensive settlement,” Lindall said in prepared statement.

Assault weapons ban 
The Senate also voted to override a veto that Quinn used to tack an assaults weapon to another bill.

SB681 would allow Illinois gun owners to purchase ammunition from in-state dealers through the mail. However, after a mass shooting in Colorado movie theater in July, Quinn used his veto pen to attach a ban on semi-automatic rifles, high-capacity magazines and .50-caliber guns onto the bill. Many lawmakers agreed that Quinn overstepped his authority by hijacking a bill that is at best tangentially related to the issue. “If the governor wants to do that, then he probably needs to find someone who introduces that bill and then we have a discussion about that bill,” said Okawville Republican David Luechtefeld, who sponsored SB 681. If the House also votes to override the veto, the underlying legislation would become law.

Quinn plans to keep pushing for a ban. “In the past six months, our nation experienced two violent shootings with an assault weapon in everyday settings: A gunman used a semi-automatic assault weapon to kill six worshipers at a Sikh temple in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Illinois also lost one of its own, Petty Officer 3rd Class John Larimer, in the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater massacre with an assault weapon that left 12 dead. As the governor has said, there is no place in Illinois for weapons designed to rapidly fire at human targets at close range,” Brooke Anderson, a spokeswoman for Quinn, said in a prepared statement. “A statewide ban on assault weapons is good public safety policy, and we will vigorously pursue this cause.”

The House has canceled its session for tomorrow, but the Senate is scheduled to start its session at 10 a.m. 

DCFS gamble on more funding could result in broader layoffs

By Jamey Dunn 

By delaying layoffs, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services is betting that lawmakers will restore some of the department’s funding when they return in November for their veto session. But if the money is not approved, personnel cuts could be even deeper.

DCFS announced last week that it would not move ahead with 375 layoffs that the department had previously said were necessary because of budget cuts. Instead DCFS plans to try its luck at getting legislators to restore some of the money during the veto session. In the meantime, those workers will be getting paid out of a budget that does not include the money to cover their wages. If lawmakers do not approve a supplemental appropriation when they return for the veto session, DCFS could face a major budget shortfall at the end of the calendar year. “In terms of the potential risk, having not laid off people at this point and if there is no supplemental, I will have spent $19,646,000 that I was not appropriated as of the end of this year. So that the position that I’ll be in is having to lay off in addition [to the previously announced layoffs] another 380 people because that’s a half a year [they worked], and I need to double their salaries in order to be able to make that up. ... That’s the reality that I’m faced with,” DCFS Director Richard Calica told lawmakers at a hearing earlier this month when asked about the potential risk of delaying layoffs.

The department announced in August that it would lay off hundreds of employees after the legislature slashed the DCFS budget. Gov. Pat Quinn had proposed a funding cut to the agency in his budget plan, but lawmakers tacked on more reductions, leaving DCFS with more than $85 million less than last fiscal year. The bulk of layoffs would have come from a preventative program known as intact family services. (For more on the cuts and layoffs, see this Illinois Issues blog post.) DCFS walked back the layoffs last week and is instead opting to continue with a restructuring plan that the Quinn administration proposed earlier this year. The plan would shift some management employees to front-line positions and is geared toward lowering the caseload volumes of front-line workers and investigators. The plan “still cuts the DCFS staff by 6 percent, compared to last year, and still reduces the budget of the agency by tens of million of dollars,” said DCFS spokesman Dave Clarkin.

But the department's actions are contingent on lawmakers voting to restore funding, as well as the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees agreeing to waive some consideration for employee seniority. Clarkin said DCFS would need about $45 million to enact the restructuring and avoid the layoffs. “Both the director and the union-represented employees and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle understand that the state of Illinois has a primary purpose, both legal and moral to protect children.”

However, the supplemental appropriation seems to be far from a done deal. Chicago Democratic Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, who chairs the human services budgeting committee in the House, said her committee expects DCFS to justify every cent of what it is asking for. “I think the days of asking for round number budget increases or restorations are really done,” she said. The deep cuts to the agency’s budget came out of Feigenholtz's committee. “We want to make sure that when we restore money, that we are actually solving some looking problems that have not been resolved.”

“We’ve been working to build support for a supplemental appropriation since essentially the day the budget was passed. We knew that the cut to DCFS was unacceptable even before the budget was passed,” said Anders Lindall, spokesperson for AFSCME Council 31. Lindall said it is too soon to comment on whether the union would agree to the changes the agency is seeking in seniority policies. He said union members are relieved that DCFS did not move forward with the layoffs, and AFSCME is specifically pushing for restorations that would keep people in their jobs.

“We want to know exactly where those bodies are going and what they’re going to be doing. ... We want this money to make it to the street. We want those phones answered, and we want those children taken care of,” Feigenholtz said. She added that a clear source for the money would also have to emerge by the veto session. Quinn has proposed using money from shuttering prisons, but a judge has blocked the prison closures. Lindall suggested using money from the sale of Thomson prison to the federal government or the possibility that state revenues may be larger than previously expected. The union opposes using money from state facility closures to fund DCFS. “Forcing Illinois residents to choose between safe kids and safe prisons is wrong, and it’s not necessary.”

House Republicans have accused Quinn of dragging his feet on cost saving Medicaid reforms, and may be less than cooperative when it comes to putting “yes” votes on any supplemental appropriations bills during the veto session. “Until the Quinn administration gets serious about implementing our Medicaid reform laws, House Republicans will oppose attempts by the governor to spend additional money,” said a written statement from House Minority Leader Tom Cross’ office.

Chicago Democratic Sen. Heather Steans, who chairs one of two Senate budget committees, said she favors approving more funding for DCFS during the veto session. However, she voiced concerns over the gamble the department would be making by holding off on layoffs. “I would like to see us being able to re-sort dollars here,” Steans said. “There’s no guarantee [a] supplemental gets passed. I’m just me. I don’t know where the House is on this. I certainly don’t know where the Republicans are on it. So it think there’s a big risk potentially on how you go forward if we don’t get a supplemental passed. There’s a big risk to the department by not taking action now because there’s no guarantee that we’re going to get the supplemental.”

Clarkin declined to discuss the potential for more layoffs if the money does not come through, or whether the department has a plan B. “I think everybody is going to keep working together to make sure that that doesn’t happen.”

DCFS chief says budget cuts threaten children's lives

By Jamey Dunn

In the wake of an estimated $90 million budget cut, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has slashed a program that works to keep kids with their families and is shifting focus from prevention to meeting its legal obligations and simply keeping kids alive.

“We took a look at how could we minimize our risk and still maintain the level of services that we are responsible for. When I say minimize risk, I’m talking about death of children. Because that’s ultimately what the Department of Children and Family Services is responsible for is protecting children from dying,” DCFS Director Richard Calica told a Senate committee at a Chicago hearing. He added, “Well-being is nice, but death is what lands in the papers, and death is what I’m responsible for.” Calica said that the cut means the agency would reduce services that are not legally required by law or consent decrees.

DCFS admitted earlier this year that it was not in compliance with a 1991 federal consent decree. As a result, DCFS rehired some retired workers on a temporary basis and moved employees over to abuse and neglect cases. Caseloads had climbed up to 18 or 19 per investigator per month. DCFS agreed to lower limit caseloads to 12 except for three months out of the year when they can climb to 15. “Conditions inside DCFS had reached a tipping point,” said Benjamin Wolf, associate legal director of the ACLU of Illinois told the Chicago Tribune in August. “Recent budget cuts, combined with a degradation of frontline services over the past years, threaten to wipe out important gains made in reforming the system in the past two decades. The plan presented in court … is an important step toward reversing that trend.” Under the consent decree, the ACLU represents all children in the foster care system.

Calica said that the department could have handled the more than $40 million cut in a restructuring plan worked out by the Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration and would not have had to cut services or reduce headcount. He said the deeper cut, approved by the General Assembly this spring, requires the layoffs of nearly 300 workers. Of the reduction, $27 million came out of money for personnel, so the director said that left him no choice other than layoffs. “I cannot make the decision to not buy computers instead of not firing people. When you tell me $27 million in personal services, those are bodies.”

The bulk of the layoffs will come from a program known as intact family services. Before the cuts, the services, such as counseling, child mentoring and parenting classes, have been offered to at risk families. “It is an option between taking a child into custody and walking away and doing nothing,” said DCFS spokesman Kendall Marlowe. “In the past the investigator was able to make that judgment call base on the situation that they saw in front of them, based on their assessment.” But as of October 1, DCFS no longer administers the program and is instead contracting with outside organizations to provide intact services. The department has also tightened eligibility requirements.

“So we looked at intact family services and we took a look at of those families that we were serving currently which ones were the ones that were most likely to result in a child that would die?” Calica said. He said that after reviewing research, the department created indicators meant to predict which families were likely to have repeat cases of abuse. Those warning signs then became the filtering system for eligibility for the program. The indicators are: a child under five years old in the household, five or more previous reports of abuse, a male adult in the household who is not biologically related to children and has committed abuse previously and a mother who was raised in the DCFS system. Marlowe said that in order to be eligible for the program, a family must have a verified case of abuse and one of one of the five risk factors. More at risk families are prioritized because the department must cut costs. “It was a manner of managing a caseload to [fit] a dollar figure,” he said.

The intact services program served between 4,500 and 5,00 families annually. DCFS estimates that the new eligibility requirements would allow about 3,2000 into the program this year. “Intact family services are not being eliminated. The scope is being reduced by a third,” Marlowe said.

Letreurna Packer, a DCFS intact supervisor and 22-year veteran of DCFS, told the committee stories of families that were helped by the program but would not qualify under the new rules. One was of a father with five kids from 10 to 16 years old. His wife died and the father took on the role of fulltime income-earner and care-giver. “He worked every day and he came home and he did the best that he possibly could to care for his children with the lack if support that they had.”

The father was reported for abuse. “He physically abused the children because that was he only mode of discipline that he knew,” Packer said. She said that the intact program provided counseling and mentoring services for the children and parenting classes for the father. The also checked in on the family twice a week and after 15 months were able to close the case without having to remove the children from their home. “It keeps the kids out of the system which can cost even more,” she said. Marlowe said there is process through which a family could be granted an exception and allowed intact services, even if it does not meet the new requirements.

“They keep families together, and they also provide a monitoring function so we know what’s going on in families that have had trouble,” said Anne Irving, director of public policy for the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Council 31. The union represents many of the employees that are slated for layoff. Irving said that if the program is scaled back and no longer administered by DCFS, “more kids are going to get pulled from their home. That’s bad for the state finically. It’s bad for the kids. It’s obviously bad for the families.”

The union and Calica urged legislators to approve supplemental spending for the agency to either eliminate or soften the blow of the cuts. Quinn has spoken out against the cuts, too. However, AFSCME opposes the funding source that he has suggested to pay for supplemental spending. Quinn is asking lawmakers to sustain his vetoes of funding to keep several state facilities, which employ AFSCME members, open and instead spend the money at DCFS. Some on the committee echoed the governor’s point of view. “When you have a budget, it’s more than a data point on a sheet. It’s a moral document, and it’s about how our state sets our priorities. If we can retain prisons that are half full in certain areas of the state or give tax credits to certain businesses that are holding the state hostage saying that they will live unless they get money form the state to stay, there’s a problem there,” said Sen. Jacqueline Collins, a Democrat from Chicago.

Lawmakers at the hearing accused Calica of being callous in his statements before the committee and the way he has related to DCFS employees. “The bottom line is, you’re the Grim Reaper. You’re to keep the governor’s name out of the paper. That’s your job,” said Sen. Donne Trotter, a Chicago Democrat. “When you applied for the job, you knew what the job description was. One of them was to come in and make these cuts in this agency.”

Calica was brought in to replace former director Erwin McEwen, who resigned just prior to a scandal that broke over the awarding of contracts to provider George Smith, who the director described as “personal mentor and friend.” Smith is accused of double billing the state and accepting money without providing services. Smith may have walked away with millions in fraudulent billing. (For more on Calica and the proposed restructuring plan, see this profile of the director in Illinois Issues June 2012.)

Calica said that he was aware when he started the job last December that he would be overseeing a restructuring plan that would involve trimming the budget and moving some management workers to frontline positions. “I was brought into the department under a cloud of fiscal irresponsibility by my predecessor.” However, he said that the cut passed by lawmakers in May was much deeper than what he had planned for. “When I was given that [restructuring plan] budget, I was not the Grim Reaper. That was not Grim Reaper time. When the budget was passed by the legislature that added another $50 million cut on, that became a Grim Reaper problem.”

He said that the changes at the agency are the product of the budget approved by the General Assembly. “The layoffs that you’ve been hearing about have to do with the budget that you all passed. You gave me the mandate to save $27 million. I don’t know how to save that without firing people, and I don’t know how to choose other than to choose based on the well-being of the children that I’m responsible for.”

Marlowe reiterated his boss’ statements about the department’s priorities, albeit in a slightly less blunt fashion. “We have core responsibilities to safety, permanency [of placement of children either back with their families or in adoptive homes] and wellbeing. But permanency and well-being can’t happen if a child is [not] safe. We need to protect lives. And in tight times, we still work to give children permanency and wellbeing, but we do have to prioritize their lives and their safety.” But both acknowledge that scaling back the intact families program could lead to more children becoming wards of the state. However, Marlowe said that he suspects it would not be a substantial increase.

“It may cost the state a lot more money by our doing this. ... A lot more children may land in foster care. It might have been a very stupid move to pass a budget like that,” Calica said.

AFSCME sues to keep prisons open

By Jamey Dunn

The state’s largest public employee union is suing to block Gov. Pat Quinn’s plans to shut down several correctional facilities on the grounds that the closures would create unsafe working environments for its members.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31 is seeking an injunction against the closure of seven facilities. Two of the facilities are prisons, a super-maximum-security prison near Tamms and a women’s prison in Dwight. The union is also suing to keep open adult transition centers in Decatur, Carbondale and Chicago and youth prisons in Joliet and Murphysboro. According to AFSCME, Quinn’s closure plan would result in the transfer of almost 5,000 prisoners, including youth offenders. “Many of the inmates that will be moved are those who have been intentionally segregated in the correctional system because of the danger they pose to guards and to other inmates. Almost a thousand maximum security female inmates will be moved, and several hundred maximum security youth will be moved as well. The insertion of these inmates into the overcrowded prisons of the state will inevitably foment unrest that will put employees, other inmates and the general community at risk,” said AFSCME’s complaint.

According to the complaint, AFSCME is suing to protect its members from the “risk of injury and death” that the group says they would face under Quinn’s plan. “Inmates are being sent to prisons that are too crowded, too short of staff or lacking appropriate security features to safely incarcerate them,” AFSCME Council 31 executive director Henry Bayer said in a prepared statement. “We’re asking the court for an injunction to prevent the state from moving forward with any closure until the related grievances have been resolved.”

Lawmakers approved a budget that contained money to keep facilities open for the current fiscal year, but Quinn used his veto pen to reject the money and has moved forward with closures. “They’re going to be closed. I do believe that we have to see our budget as what our priorities are,” Quinn said when he announced his changes to the budget. He called on lawmakers to instead use the money to defer other cuts that were in the budget, including an $86 million reduction to funding for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.  The State-Journal Register reported that the agency recently issued layoff notices to 600 employees as part of a restructuring plan that would result in a net reduction of 375 jobs. The department claimed that the layoffs were a direct result of the budget cut.

Legislators opposed to the closures have asked Quinn to hold off on shutting down the facilities until they have a chance to act on the governor’s vetoes. “Anyone who calls to keep these outdated, half-full, expensive facilities open is calling for the continual waste of taxpayer dollars on facilities the state no longer needs, ” Kelly Kraft, a spokesperson for Quinn, said in a prepared statement. “The overall population is down from last year, and female entries into the system are declining. Inmates will be safely and securely transitioned into appropriate facilities fully capable of securing offenders and resulting in costs savings to Illinois taxpayers. Some will say that money was provided in the budget to keep these facilities open, when in reality, legislators made a choice on how to spend taxpayer dollars: choosing outdated, half-full, expensive prisons over educating our children and keeping them safe.”

Audit: DCFS falls short on response times but shows improvement

By Jamey Dunn

A recent audit found that  investigations of reported child abuse and reviews of death cases by the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services are not living up to state law, although the agency has made improvements in recent years.

Child Death Review Teams that fall under the department’s purview face a backlog of cases, Illinois Auditor General Bill Holland's office found. The teams are required to review the deaths of children who were wards of DCFS, subjects of open cases, subjects of abuse or neglect investigations in the year before their deaths, and children whose deaths are reported to the department as the result of abuse or neglect. Those reviews come after DCFS has conducted an initial investigation, and they are geared toward preventing future fatalities.

The teams were assigned 161 mandated cases in Fiscal Year 2009 and 164 mandated cases in FY 2010. The teams can also take on cases at their discretion. Teams are required to complete their reviews within 90 days after a DCFS investigation or, if there is no investigation, 90 days after they receive the necessary information. For FY 2010, the department did not complete 70 out of 95 death reviews within 90 days of the DCFS investigation. For cases that DCFS did not investigate, the teams fell short of the 90-day deadline on 51 out of 63 cases. According to DCFS documentation, six deaths from FY 2010 had not been reviewed at the time of the audit.

Kendall Marlowe, spokesperson for DCFS, said part of the holdup is the amount of time it takes county governments to send the death certificates to teams “because we live in a state with 102 counties, and those counties have different resources and different processes.” DCFS has set the goal of having all FY 2010 cases reviewed by July 30.

Besides working to help determine the cause of deaths, the team also makes recommendations for ways to prevent child deaths. Marlowe points to the example of childhood drowning, which is the leading cause for accidental death for children and the second leading cause of accidental death among teenagers. The panels made recommendations that led to May becoming childhood drowning prevention month in the state and a time when DCFS works to educate children and parents.

Auditors said the teams’ inability to meet requirements makes them less effective at such prevention efforts.

The department is also required to begin investigating all potential cases of abuse or neglect within 24 hours of a report. In FY 2010, the department did not begin an investigation within the required time frame for 97 of 67, 377 reports. This number is down from its highest point in the decade, which was 517 cases out of 59,241 in FY 2002. However it has increased from the lowest point in the decade, which was last year, when the department failed to start investigating 83 reports within 24 hours out of 68,732 total reports.

“Failure to respond to a report of abuse or neglect within 24 hours could result in further endangerment to the child and is a violation of the [ Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act,]” the audit said. However auditors noted that the department has shown continual improvement when it comes to responding to reports.

While the department has not reached the 100 percent compliance required by law, Marlowe said great strides have been made in recent years to ensure that it is responding appropriately to reports of abuse. “Reports that come in do not fit any pattern … so it will always be struggle to get to 100 percent compliance.” He noted that reports of abuse are prioritized base on the potential danger to children. “On the more serious cases, we do not hesitate at all. … An investigator is heading out immediately.”

Auditors spot-checked 57 foster care and family case files. Of those files, 37 were missing checklists for initial child placement as well as for long term planning. Ten were missing medical and dental consent forms, seven were missing pictures of children and 13 were missing children’s’ fingerprints. Administrators had failed to review five of the cases.

Auditors noted that DCFS needs more bilingual staff to comply with law and a court order. DCFS is required to have 194 bilingual front line staff members but only had 148 as of March 2010. Marlowe said budget constraints are a factor but the state’s growing Hispanic population has also put bilingual social workers in high demand.

“Spanish speaking populations are growing in parts of the state where they have not before,” Marlowe said. “It’s not a challenge that we will achieve in the very near future. … It has more to do with supply and demand in the social services work force.”

While auditors found 13 problem areas at the agency, the number is down from 15 in the previous audit, and auditors did cite progress in a number of areas. Marlow said federal requirements have pushed DCFS to track its performance on a regular basis. “This is an agency that over the last 10 years has become performance-driven. We measure and analyze our own performance on a continual basis and are not satisfied until we are serving every child and family in the most effective way possible.”

Delving deeper into the budget cuts

By Jamey Dunn

Gov. Pat Quinn released a new round of budget cuts last week with no fanfare and little detail. The plan, displayed on a website dedicated to the budget, gives a one-page-per-agency description of which areas will be cut. It lists some grants and contains some rather cryptic descriptions. That is perhaps due in part to the fact that cuts to education and social services are unpopular, and details are still being worked out. The last thing Quinn’s administration wants to do is get people up in arms about specifics, only to see them change during the negotiation process.

However, the fiscal year is already a month old, and elections are only a few months away. School districts, local governments, social service providers, universities, community colleges and voters need to know the potential impacts of reductions to plan their own budgets and, in the case of voters, help them decide whom they want to represent them in the years to come as Illinois tries to climb out of this financial crisis.

In this spirit, I decided to take each breakdown of agency cuts and try to get more details on what the targeted areas are, such as what certain grants are used for or who benefits from certain programs. I will post my findings in the coming weeks. I expect to hit some dead ends because interested parties are often hesitant to talk about details for fear of throwing off negotiations. If I can’t get the details, I will at least let you know my process. And things will likely change as negotiations proceed and new developments come in, such as the possibility of more federal funding. If you have comments or suggestions, I would love to hear them.

First up: the Department of Child and Family Services, which faced a $6 million reduction in the first round of cuts Quinn proposed last month. That number jumped up to $34.5 million in the new plan released last week.

DCFS

Proposed drastic cuts to the Department of Child and Family Services budget last year landed the state in a lawsuit with the American Civil Liberties Union, and it could happen again this year.

The $34.5 million in cuts that Quinn proposed last week are not nearly as deep as the $460 million reduction he suggested as part of last year's “doomsday” budget, which was never enacted. However, it is unclear whether the new funding levels would cause the agency to break a court order.

Last year’s lawsuit was based on a settlement the state reached with the American Civil Liberties Union after a 1988 lawsuit that ushered in sweeping reforms to the way the agency does business. “Many of the standards that are in that consent decree are due to the cooperation between the plaintiff and the agency itself. … Many of those standards are above the national norms,” said Kendall Marlowe, a DCFS spokesperson.

The consent decree sets standards of care, such as on staffing levels, child-to-caseworker ratios and required programs. The ACLU is now the court-ordered watchdog in charge of making sure DCFS lives up to the settlement. While the decree contains no required funding level, DCFS is supposed to run its budget by the ACLU, so that organization can determine whether the funding is enough to meet the requirements.

Marlowe said the state would be able to meet its commitments in the consent decree with the new budget cuts.

However, ACLU associate legal director Benjamin Wolf is not sure. He said his organization approved the original $6 million in cuts after determining that the agency would be able to live up to the consent decree after the reduction. But it has not figured out whether DCFS will be able to make the grade under the new proposal, which the agency had yet to discuss with the ACLU as of last Thursday.

Wolf added that some time is still available for the two groups to get together to try to sort things out, since DCFS plans to avoid cutting staff who deal directly with children. “There is nothing in that plan which would endanger the health and safety of children next week,” he said.

Here’s the breakdown of Quinn's proposed cuts, according to Marlowe (Italics are pulled directly from Quinn’s proposal):

($4.3M) - Operations Lump Sum
Maintains budgeted headcount by filling vacant positions over a longer period of time and moving some operations funding from the General Revenue Fund to the agency’s Children’s Services Fund.

Cuts to operations costs will be realized by holding off on filling 139 positions. The department plans to hire for no more than a quarter of the jobs this year and fill the rest next year. Marlowe says these are office positions, such as administrative assistants and clerical workers, not “front line staff, ” such as caseworkers, who work directly with children and families.

The Children Service’s Fund has money in it from federal matching programs, so spending would be shifted away from state resources.

($30.2M) - Grants Lump Sum
Reestimate of Institution & Group Home demand
Reduces indirect contracts
Increases revenue opportunities & improves Federal claiming

Marlowe said DCFS makes projections for how many children may need to spend time in institutions or group homes, and those assessments can be trimmed back. “There is no way to know that in certain for advance, so you have to do projections.”

He added that DCFS has been working on a shift to community-based treatment and away from institutionalization, so reducing the number of kids going into such homes is in step with the current treatment philosophy.

Wolfe said that is one of the aspects of the cuts that he is most concerned about. However, Marlowe said children would not be turned away. “If the kid needs help and the kid needs to be placed in a group home, we’re going to place him in the group home.”

According to Marlowe, reducing indirect contracts would mean cutting down on consultants, such as hiring a child psychologist not employed by DCFS to help with a specific case. He said it would not include any reduction in payments to foster families, residential services providers or group homes.

The cuts would also mean a cut to funding for research the agency uses to pinpoint the best methods to help the kids it serves, as well as assess the effectiveness of its own efforts.

Marlowe says prolonged cuts to research could damage the agency in the long run. “Part of why we have gotten better at delivering service to children is because we have developed this research base. … Some of the background work we are doing now could benefits kids five [or] 10 years down the road.”

He added that the agency has made great strides to capture as much federal funding as possible through what he says are often complicated reimbursement programs.

Agencies to merge by the end of the year

Jamey Dunn

Gov. Pat Quinn appointed a new director to head up the Department of Juvenile Justice (DOJJ) and oversee an agency merger that he said is coming before the end of the year.

Quinn named Arthur Bishop, who is currently the deputy director of field operations for the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), as acting director of DOJJ. Quinn said he wants Bishop to be the “quarterback” leading the merger of the two agencies. Bishop will replace Kurt Friedenauer starting August 1.

As a first step to the eventual merger, Quinn signed legislation earlier this week that allows the Department of Child and Family Services to share resources with DOJJ.

Kendall Marlowe, a DCFS spokesman, said that his agency could help youth offenders by offering services such as placement in a safe environment after they have spent time in a detention facility, mental health treatment or programs to help prepare them for careers or higher education.

Marlowe added that DCFS plans to find ways to collect federal matching dollars for some of the services children in the DOJJ system need. “DCFS had made great progress over the past few years when it comes to claiming federal funds.”

Quinn says kids in both systems often have similar needs because they face similar obstacles, such as abuse addiction and mental health issues.

“The overwhelming majority of young people in detention are struggling with the effects of childhood mistreatment, and they would benefit from a system that understands that trauma often can lead to difficult situations, and we must relieve the trauma,” Quinn said at a Chicago press conference.

Both Bishop and Marlowe said that stakeholders have been in talks for months on the merger. Marlowe said his agency is moving forward under the assumption that it will be a reality before the end of the year.

Bishop said he hopes the merger will help “ensure first of all that there is safety in the community to hold youth accountable.” But also, “do a thorough assessment so that we can determine the needs of those youth so that those that are appropriately ready to be discharged from the [DOJJ] that they will be discharged into a community that’s prepared to receive them, that’s prepared to meet their needs so we can then reduce recidivism.

Budget
Quinn announced his newest cuts made with the budgeting powers the General Assembly granted him in the “Emergency Budget Act." Quinn and his nonunion staff will take 24 furlough days this fiscal year. They took 12 unpaid days off last year. The governor made this move after facing criticism over giving his employees pay raises while calling on government agencies and citizens to “share the pain” of the state’s fiscal crisis. Quinn said the furlough days are equivalent to about a 9 percent pay cut.

Quinn added that he has cut his budget more than any other executive agency and some of his staff has taken on new responsibilities.

Quinn also said that more cuts are in the works and the budget will be fluid throughout the fiscal year. “This budget year we are going to have constant review. It’s not a one-day document. It’s going to be day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month throughout this fiscal year. There will be administrative orders regularly in order to mange our state through a very difficult time.”

Foster care children at risk

By Hilary Russell
If July 1 turns into a "doomsday" for state-funded human services, thousands of children in foster care could lose their homes within three months, according to the Childcare Association of Illinois.

The advocacy group organized a standing-room only rally today in Chicago's James R. Thompson Center to propose severe funding cuts and to encourage lawmakers to find a better way to balance an out-of-whack state budget. Democrats approved a so-called bare bones budget May 31 that would fund human services at half the level proposed by Gov. Pat Quinn, who said he does not intend to sign the budget into law because it carries a $9.2 billion deficit and would require devastating cuts to services for the most vulnerable citizens.

The Childcare Association of Illinois said that within 90 days of the proposed budget taking effect, monthly state payments to foster parents would be cut in half. CORRECTION: The state currently pays $384 per foster child in a home. When the fiscal year begins July 1, that payment would reduce to $192. Caretakers described the decrease as drastic and said it could require families to return the foster children to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.

Rhonda Hansen, who raises four foster children between ages 4 and 7, faces that possibility. She attended the rally and later said in a phone interview that she not only couldn't afford to care for the children on her part-time wages of $800 a month, but she also couldn't keep working if she lost her childcare services through DCFS.

Foster children cannot be left with a friend or relative unless the individual has gone through a background check and been approved by DCFS, she said.

She added that she worries about what would happen to the children if she gave them up. For instance, two of the children were removed from their original home, Hansen said, after findings of severe neglect and physical abuse by their mother, who is now serving time in prison. They also were removed from a second foster home because, she said, relatives also neglected them. They are both in therapy, another service Hansen said they stand to lose if the budget isn't changed.

“I can't bear thinking about making that call to someone telling them to come get them,” she said.

If Quinn signed the budget as approved by Democrats, about 9,000 foster parents could be affected, according to David Ormsby of the Childcare Association of Illinois.

Gladys Boyd, president of the association and a foster parent in Richton Park, said she, too, would have to return her children to DCFS if the state cuts reimbursement levels.

"These politicians should be ashamed of themselves," she said. "Completely ashamed."

The governor and legislative leaders have been meeting behind closed doors since June 1. Lawmakers are scheduled return to Springfield for a special session Tuesday, seven days before the new fiscal year starts without a budget in place. Quinn's goal is to approve a state income tax increase to avoid cutting or eliminating funding to human services. However, legislative leaders said yesterday that there doesn't appear to be enough support for an income tax increase as early as next week.

This is not the first time DCFS has experienced massive cuts. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the state's child welfare system was in chaos, Ormsby said. More than 50,000 children were in the system at that time, which prompted the state to house them in welfare agencies, where they slept on cots.

Today, there are about 16,000 foster care children in the system. Ormsby said more than half of them could face the same fate.

“This time, with so many cuts, they will be drawing out the pool of foster care parents to some degree,” he said. “Many of the agencies themselves will simply go out of business because of the enormity of the cuts.”