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THE FUTURE OF DCF The Past is Prologue The most important thing is to protect yourself. In this economy, raises, promotions, health care benefits, pensions, and continued employment are important. The wise person is unlikely to jeopardize them. When I first started as a State-paid Juvenile Court lawyer, I had a much higher opinion of DCF than I do now. It changed with the Mexico baby. I had an assignment to represent a child. His parents had taken
him to the small upstate town of Mexico, New York, and sold him to a very nice
middle-class couple who could not have children. The parents, of course,
maintained that it was a temporary arrangement, and they were just providing
expense money to the couple. The distraught Mexico couple, who believed that they had acted in good faith all along, called me; apparently getting nowhere with DCF. They pleaded how responsible and appropriate they were, etc. I advised them, at least a dozen times, to get a Connecticut lawyer and fight for custody. For whatever reason, they declined, and the baby was eventually adopted by a Connecticut couple. I thought it strange that DCF needed prodding from me to rescue a bartered child, however respectable the buyers were.
As to the future of DCF, I have an opinion. DCF operates on the referral system. Someone has to call DCF to say that a child is possibly being abused or neglected. Then DCF investigates. But why wait for a call? What if DCF could investigate all children at will, and determine for itself if the child were abused or neglected? That is what I call NOREIN – NO REferral INtervention. And I am convinced that it is the future of DCF. Several highly-placed DCF managers have told me that there is no such program. Maybe not by that name, but I am morally certain that DCF is planning something like it. NOREIN would ensure that DCF never goes out of business, and is in a position to demand ever-more money from the State Legislature. This is hardly fantasy. This is the same DCF that once asked the State Attorney General if it had the authority to violate the Fourth Amendment, invading people’s homes without their consent, just by claiming that they were investigating child neglect. DCF has bright people, and they see what the Patriot Act allows law enforcement to get away with. No, it is hardly fantasy. But how would you actually implement NOREIN? It’s a fair question. The answer is simple: through the schools. The kids are a captive audience; and the teachers, reduced today to teaching to a test, will have no trouble making referrals and comments and filling out reports as they are told to do. The administration is even easier; it is already accustomed to being paper-pushers and taking direction from its downtown lawyers. This explains why DCF absolutely hates home-schooling with a passion. Although it is perfectly legal, DCF has often stated that parents are neglectful, per se, because of home schooling their kids. DCF is maddeningly frustrated by home schooling; and the obvious reason is that it has little or no control over it. The DCF pitch is simplicity itself: kids are victims, they
cannot speak for themselves, so we cannot wait for a neighbor or a teacher to
call. We have to investigate for ourselves. The need for more workers, more
investigators, more procedure writers, more supervisors, more legislative
liaisons, more think tanks, and more study groups, is clear; as is the need for
more taxpayer money to implement Big Brother (or Big Uncle) for our children.
Just Say NO to NOREIN. The Possibility of Civil Rights
On March 9, 2007, the popular TV show “20/20” ran a story of a woman wrongfully convicted of murdering her 10-year-old son. This average middle-class woman was sentenced to 65 years in prison. Through good luck, after a few years, she got “Project
Innocence” to convince a high-powered lawyer to take her case pro bono. The
woman had no money, and her family could not afford over a million dollars in
legal fees.
As 20/20 reported, after the woman was acquitted in her second trial, she and her lawyer were mobbed by reporters. One question asked was: “Is it necessary to have a million-dollar defense to vindicate your own innocence?” Sadly, the answer is often “Yes.” Fighting the enormous bureaucratic power of the State is not easy. The “good guys” usually win in the movies and on TV, but not always in real life. Civil rights would ensure that DCF follows the traditional rules of evidence, that lawyers actually defend their clients, and that persons facing the parental death sentence of TPR (termination of parental rights) be given a fighting chance by the State. It may yet happen. But not if NOREIN becomes the rule. DCF Budget and Audits For fiscal year 2008, DCF’s budget was approximately $867 Million. That amounted to approximately 4.93% of the entire State of Connecticut budget. Personnel costs are approximately 31.44% of DCF’s budget. Yet DCF pays NO outside organizations to conduct audits of any of its programs. DCF also receives federal funding of approximately $21.8 Million. That amount is primarily based upon federal formulas relating to food stamp usage, Indian tribes, the population of children in the state, and the state’s average per capita income. Some funds also depend upon the number of children committed to DCF. DCF has no outside auditors evaluating its programs, or the programs of any of its numerous service providers. There are no outside independent audits to study and evaluate any programs in terms of their adequacy, cost effectiveness, success in meeting goals, or any other criteria. Therefore, an agency with a budget of nearly one billion dollars, and one which will surely grow over the years, operates virtually without oversight. It is true that the Commissioner must report to the State Legislature and the Governor. But if those persons have no detailed idea of program success, other than what internal DCF staffers tell them, then how well-served are the taxpayers? DCF, as mentioned frequently, has a serious and important mission. But how much of its mission of child protection would be better directed to child welfare? Who is tracking individual examples of DCF waste? who is evaluating programs and determining if they are useful? who follows-up on complaints? who decides if a program should be replaced by one that will employ fewer people? DCF is the size of a small public corporation. Operating it as an audit-free entity makes no sense, whatever your political persuasion. A private company always wants to cut expenses. A public entity, such as DCF, seeks to increase expenses, as a way to get more money and increase its presence. At the very least, meaningful outside independent auditing should be required. Budget Implications for Child Welfare Anyone who reads the above section, and who has the slightest concern for child welfare, could be forgiven for breaking down and crying. Can you imagine what a billion dollars would do for child welfare in Connecticut? No, we will never have perfection; that is unattainable and in some ways undesirable. But we could make significant improvements in the following areas:
Of course, there are many other possibilities, and I do not wish to get overextended. Any of these items is debatable. However, I find it hard to believe that any reasonable person could prefer the following over child welfare:
DCF will respond that it has no choice. It will point to various federal child welfare acts, starting with social security, and continuing through to the 1980 Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act, the Adoption and Safe Families Act, and others, which effectively put a premium on removing kids and placing them in foster care or putting them up for adoption. And, of course, this almost always means “poor kids.” The well-off can hire better lawyers and work around it. The rationalizations do not impress me. The failure of the United States to provide meaningful child welfare is a very sad situation. Both political parties are culpable. MISSION STATEMENT Our mission statement is clear:
WILL DCF EVER GO AWAY? People often ask me if DCF will ever go away, or at least be replaced by a kinder and gentler agency. I would say that that is highly unlikely. Connecticut has two growth industries left: gambling, and government bureaucracy. When I was growing up in the 1950’s, we led the nation in many things: typewriters, insurance, defense, education, quality of life. Things changed. Don’t ask why: Democrats blame Republicans and Republicans blame Democrats; business and labor blame each other; big cities and small towns blame each other. It’s a fun debate, but one without a purpose. We are what we are. Gambling sneaked in, with the help of no-income-tax Weicker and never-answer-your-mail Gejdenson. It is run by questionable Indians from non-existent tribes. The lessons of “Without Reservation” and “Hitting the Jackpot” are ignored, even by those who once opposed legalized gambling. No one will give up the money. As outsourcing increased, public employee unions became stronger. DCF is part of that. No one seriously questions its budget in terms of its actual performance. What counts is making government the employer of last resort. Bureaucracy is the strangest phenomenon in the intellectual history of the world. It is the only idea, to my knowledge, that everyone is publicly against; and yet it keeps growing. That tells you two things: bureaucracy serves a purpose, and people are ashamed of that purpose. The purpose, of course, is to foster security while reducing risk; but without paying a premium as is done in private insurance. Bureaucracy appeals to two well-known human foibles: laziness and greed. Sometimes these foibles are countered by religion and scholarly education, but those two concepts are somewhat out of fashion today. Until some future Utopia arrives, DCF will be a way of life. And other States are getting on the bandwagon. The child protection game, minus the child welfare, is good for business. As to our two major growth industries: Recently, this country went on an anti-smoking campaign. A move to ban smoking in casinos, however, was defeated. Legislators, to their credit, openly acknowledged the danger of second-hand smoke to casino employees; yet they openly admitted that they would do nothing that might arguably hurt casino business. Similarly, legislators will do nothing that might hurt government employment. DCF is a perfect way to ensure more power to public employee unions, while avoiding the thornier question of child welfare. Legislators know that most people will equate DCF’s version of “child protection” with the concept of “child welfare”. The real problem is that we do not have enough jobs in this country to support our population. Hence, make-work is the order of the day. There is plenty of work to do; make no mistake about that. But it cannot be done under our current minimum wage and welfare and vote-buying climate. A very sad commentary on our education system. The Hartford Courant recently wondered why students were learning less today than in the bad old 1950’s. They proposed all sorts of gimmicks for improvement. It never occurred to the Courant that the gimmicks were the problem in the first place. Educators are supposed to educate; not to solve the problems that the rest of society ignores. Connecticut has indeed come a long way since I was a child. The bottom line is that, given current political realities, DCF will only get stronger. You must live with DCF. This web site is intended to make that easier. |
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©2008 The Law Offices of Michael
H. Agranoff
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