Nearly everyone leaves within a year of being hired. Allegations of sexual abuse between children went uninvestigated, as did accusations of misconduct by contractors.

Children are forced to sleep in office buildings or hospitals after the state separated them from their families because they were abused or neglected.

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And the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services failed to make a plan to fix these problems, year after year.

Much of this was old news, but some details — such as the failure to investigate sexual abuse — were brought to light by a damning audit published Tuesday, Dec. 13, by the state comptroller. That audit was the subject of a Wednesday, Dec. 14, General Assembly hearing in Nashville at which DCS Commissioner Margie Quin answered lawmakers’ questions for three hours.

December meetings of the Government Operations Joint Subcommittee on Education, Health and General Welfare usually don’t attract much attention. But more people are paying attention after years of consistent, critical media coverage about DCS; several Nashville TV stations sent videographers to cover Wednesday’s hearing.

“The safety, permanency, and well-being of Tennessee’s most vulnerable children is in jeopardy by management’s failure (to) identify the risks DCS faces and develop an impactful strategic plan to address both long-standing and current issues,” the audit states.

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DCS failed to “curtail the escalating turnover of case managers, which has led to ever-increasing caseloads, and prioritize hiring strategies to fill case manager vacancies (and to) expand long-term placement options and set standards for consistent quality of facilities for children placed in temporary settings.”

Quin, who started the job Sept. 1, did not cause these problems. She said the crisis would not end “overnight” and that solutions would come “one step at a time.”

“We’re gonna be strategic, and we’re gonna be transparent,” she told reporters after the hearing. “We’re working to move as quickly as we possibly can.”

Major findings

The 164-page audit showed the ways DCS put children in danger, created an unacceptable work environment for the people charged with serving them and did not make plans to solve systemic issues.

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The audit states the department did not investigate sexual abuse allegations in a timely manner, allowing children to remain in abusive situations for weeks or months; sometimes, DCS didn’t ensure investigations were conducted at all. (Quin said the examples cited were of children abusing other children.)

One of the other major findings provided hard numbers to a widely reported trend: Nearly every entry-level case manager — 97% — left DCS in their first year.

Overall, the department had a 56% turnover rate in fiscal year 2022.

Case managers account for about 70% of the department’s salaried positions.

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“Top leadership must take more aggressive action to hire and retain case managers or risk the safety of vulnerable children who slip through the cracks because there is no one to help them,” the audit states.

In addition, case managers conduct their administrative work on a system workers describe as clunky, finicky and unwieldy, which often provides incomplete information by, for example, including two different entries for children differentiated by a typo or middle initial.

Problems with that system, TFACTS, have been identified in at least five audits since it was implemented in 2010.

The audit does not mention the effects of the Brian A. consent decree. Under that decree, which ended in February 2019, federal judges forced the department to make many reforms, including caseload maximums.

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Higher pay, caseload caps and temporary privatization

Quin accepted the Comptroller’s findings and presented several solutions, many of which will be dependent on lawmakers.

Some of those reforms are included in a $156 million budget increase request for fiscal year 2024, which will have to go through the legislature before being approved by Gov. Bill Lee.

Lee approved a pay increase for case workers, from around $35,000 to around $43,000, and Quin thinks another boost is in order, particularly in the most expensive corners of the state.

While low pay is a major issue, it’s not the only one; Quin wants to improve mentorship within the department and improve her workers’ access to mental health care. She also wants to find 1,000 new foster families.

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Former workers have told The Daily Memphian that burnout, lack of support and poor leadership are among the issues that led them to quit.

Auditors said 37% of workers were managing more than 20 cases, and 4% had to cover more than 40 cases. During that consent decree, no workers could have more than 20 cases, and many were capped at 10 or 15 depending on their job title.

Quin wants a 10-case cap during workers’ first year on the job, but she was reluctant to request a caseload maximum beyond that time. She said a cap could burden her successor.

With about 480 caseworker positions open, it would be impossible to limit the number of cases per worker, Quin said. She plans to outsource some work to private providers for a couple of years while she rebuilds her workforce.

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“Nothing really matters until we get to full staff,” she said.

A caseload cap is essentially a hiring mandate, which is exactly what state Sen. Page Walley (R-Bolivar) says is needed. Walley, who ran DCS and a similar department in Alabama — both under consent decrees — said that cap would put pressure on lawmakers.

“I would say it’s incumbent on the legislature to respond then,” Walley said. “It puts the onus back on us.”

‘We want this to work’

While many of these issues are as old as DCS itself, and have been documented in audits over the past 25 years, they have accelerated since 2019, after the consent decree was lifted and Lee was inaugurated.

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For his part, Lee has committed to pay increases and other reforms to a department that began unraveling just after he took office.

“We need to increase the pay for those workers,” he said at a Nov. 21 press conference. “We want to make sure they’re paid commensurate with the market.”

He appointed Quin, about whom many are enthusiastic, including workers, and he appeared open to her budget request for fiscal year 2024. But he refused to endorse caseload caps for all workers when asked directly at that press conference.

“We have a responsibility as a state to make sure we’re serving these kids well,” he said. “We want this to work.”

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‘Disgusted’

The crisis is too urgent for the state to begin to address it during fiscal year 2024, said state Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville).

Johnson and state Sen. Heidi Campbell (D-Nashville) have been the two most vocal lawmakers seeking reform at DCS. Last week, they launched a website with information compiled by their staff documenting the history of the department.

Johnson said a number of reforms could be made immediately.

“There are things we could be doing right now,” she told reporters after the hearing. “And nothing is happening. ... Who of us can live with doing nothing until July?”

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Johnson said Republicans — who have killed her bills to require caseload maximums in line with best practices identified by social work research — should accept more blame in the situation. Reporters asked if she planned to sponsor similar legislation again.

“Oh, you absolutely better believe it.”