DHS to Reduce Number of Child Welfare Workers

Staff and Wire Reports

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The state Department of Human Services is planning to cut the number of child welfare workers it has in the state to fewer than 1,000.

DHS officials said there will be no layoffs, but instead a reduction in force will come through attrition.

DHS had 1,095 child welfare workers in May. That number was down to 1,056 in October. DHS chief operating officer Marq Youngblood said there are plans to cut the number to 997 through attrition.

Youngblood said the cuts are in part due to state agencies being told to cut their budgets by 5 percent through the end of the fiscal year in June.

But one Oklahoma lawmaker is not happy with the reductions.

"I think it's nuts. We have children in jeopardy every single day," Rep. Richard Morrissette, (D) District 92.

Morrissette has been working for years to overhaul Oklahoma's DHS agency.

"Let me make a suggestion to DHS. Why don't they retract the pay raises that they gave to the administrators without legislative approval? Some of them were as high as $1,800 a month," Morrissette said.

DHS officials also said fewer child welfare workers are needed because of fewer children in state custody, fewer calls to the child-abuse hot line and fewer confirmed cases of abuse and neglect.

"We actually have less than 9,000 children in our care whereas back in 2007 we had over 12,000 children in our care," said Lauri Monetti, DHS communications manager.

Part of the reason for that may be House Bill 1734, which works to keep families together as opposed to removing children from the home and placing them in state custody.

"We're helping them get counseling, whatever assistance they might need to keep the family unit together in the home before it ever gets to the court," Monetti said.

But Morrissette calls the reduction a type of political maneuvering or a scare tactic to force the legislature to give the agency more money.

"Their job is to protect children and the front line workers are the case workers, the front line troops. We need to scale back on administrators that push paper all day long day instead of the front line people dealing with the crises within the family," Morrissette said.

Morrissette said he will bring up the issue in the next few weeks during a budget meeting at the state capitol.

Oklahoma is currently being sued by Children's Rights, a New York based child advocacy group. The lawsuit accuses DHS of mistreating children. A trial date has yet to be set.