Big spend proposed for Georgia child welfare agency

One of the larger growth areas in the state budget this year is the Division of Family and Children Services, Gov. Nathan Deal said at a budget hearing on Tuesday.

Calls about child welfare are going up, he said. But he said there’s a good side to that.

“We have emphasized the importance of telling someone if you see a situation that would indicate a child is in jeopardy,” Deal told lawmakers at the state Captiol.

He said that “aggressive approach” to encouraging callers has increased the number of calls the state gets.

For the fiscal year that begins in July, Deal is proposing some $66 million in new child welfare spending. That would pay for a growth in demand for out-of-home care, more DFCS employees, a higher per diem payment for foster parents and an average 19 percent raise for child welfare services workers.

The benefits to early intervention will be obvious, he said.

In the past few years, DFCS has hired hundreds of new workers and Deal replaced the agency boss. The moves came in the wake of news about backlogs at DFCS and the high-profile deaths of two children in its custody.

But more clients also means a lot of work. In Middle Georgia, the average caseload for a child protective services worker is 20 cases.

If DFCS could fill all its positions, that would bring the average Middle Georgia worker’s caseload down to 11 cases, according to the agency’s budget presentation.

Turnover at the agency runs between 32 and 37 percent on an annualized basis, DFCS Director Bobby Cagle said this week, also speaking at a budget hearing.

“At any given time we have about 500 positions that are vacant,” said Cagle.

Debate over the entire $25 billion state budget will continue over the next few weeks.

This story was originally published January 19, 2017 at 6:37 PM with the headline "Big spend proposed for Georgia child welfare agency."