Child welfare reform is now in the hands of David Berns, who walked into a hornet’s nest when he took over the Department of Economic Security last August.

After nearly two months of grilling by the Legislature — many Republicans expressing distrust for the agency — Mr. Berns and his boss, Governor Napolitano, emerged from the recent 55-day special session saying they gained the approval of most of their wish list for Child Protective Services.

“We didn’t get all the supplemental [appropriation] we wanted,” Ms. Napolitano said, “but we got an agreement that all existing services are to continue. It’s basically a hold-harmless provision.”

Ms. Napolitano said of the reform policies: “I think we got 90 per cent of what was in the original proposal.” There were a few minor adjustments, she said.

That wish list included many of the nearly 50 proposals to improve CPS that came out of an eight-month task force study of child welfare in Arizona.

Despite initial opposition to any supplemental funding for CPS reforms from some lawmakers, the Legislature, through negotiations with the governor and agency staff, passed the CPS bill by an overwhelming margin Dec. 13. The House vote was 53-1 in favor of H2024, and the Senate vote was 24-1.

The bill, which the governor signed Dec. 18, appropriates $6.5 million for caseworker pay raises, the hiring of 120 more caseworkers, and increased compensation for foster parents.

Changes ‘Won’t Happen Overnight’

It will take three months before newly hired caseworkers can “touch a case,” Mr. Berns said.

Caseworkers were “cautiously optimistic and excited” when they learned of the Legislature’s actions, Mr. Berns said.

The legislation also provides the agency with $10.8 million to avoid layoffs in light of an estimated $27 million shortfall in the current budget.

CPS will now operate under statutory mandates that child safety comes first ahead of keeping a family together, and agency records will be open within federal guidelines. Under the new law, the agency is required to investigate 100 per cent of child abuse complaints. Previously DES officials said they were unable to investigate all such cases because of a lack of staff.

Ms. Napolitano said a turnaround at CPS will take a while.

“The key thing now for us is to begin the implementation of CPS reforms,” she said, “but it won’t happen overnight.”

Mr. Berns said that by June, an early family intervention program against child abuse and neglect, along with stepped-up foster home recruitment, will be in place.

Total reform of the agency, he said, is “more of a journey than a destination, [and] it doesn’t mean we won’t drop the ball on something.”

The foremost challenge to reforming the agency is overcoming its past, Mr. Berns said.

“Overcoming years of neglect in the system,” he said. “We’ve made decisions in the past without a middle tier of services to quickly intervene and provide in-home services.”

It was widely reported before and during the special session that more than 30 children whose cases were known to CPS died over the past five years.

Intervention by the agency many years ago might have prevented those deaths, Mr. Berns said.

Director: ‘We’re Worthy Of Trust’

The Senate initially approved $21 million for CPS, in part based on confidence in Mr. Berns’s reputation in similar positions in Michigan and Colorado. Mr. Berns is one individual credited with aiding welfare reforms in El Paso County, Colorado, in a 51-page report released last January by the Center for Law and Social Policy called “A Vision for Eliminating Poverty and Family Violence.” It was funded, in part, by a grant from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

“This was a vote of confidence in the new director, who has found in two other states funds within the budgets,” said Senate President Ken Bennett, R-Dist. 1.

“He has half a year,” Mr. Bennett said, referring to an agreement that CPS will “scour” the books to find funds within DES to fund CPS through June.

“I take as my challenge that we’re worthy of trust,” Mr. Berns said, but told Arizona Capitol Times that CPS will need more funding before June.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Not because of new programs, but because we have 1,100 more kids in foster care … my options are very limited.”

Whether a request for more CPS money before June will fly with legislators such as Sen. Jack Harper, R-Dist. 4 remains to be seen.

Praising Mr. Bennett for negotiating the CPS deal, Mr. Harper said the Senate president was “the only one who prevented this [bill] from becoming a train wreck that would have gouged the taxpayers of Arizona.”

In its final form the CPS bill was 58 pages, and senators not involved in the negotiations had only a short time to study it the final evening of the session. Citing last-minute passage in 2000 of the original alternative fuels bill, one senator said she hoped the CPS bill didn’t have any consequences that she couldn’t explain to her constituents.

Even a critic of earlier versions of the CPS bill said he was pleased.

“On balance, this is a good bill,” according to Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Reform Protection, a nonprofit group based in Virginia that advocates for improvements to child welfare systems.

“Almost every harmful provision from previous versions was dropped. The bill no longer makes it neglect to live in a filthy home, and it no longer gives some pregnant women reason to flee from prenatal care – indeed, it even includes a provision that may encourage more drug treatment. By eliminating these provisions, the chances of exacerbating the current foster care panic in Arizona are reduced. That increases the chances that the new money will be well-spent, and not wasted on more needless removal of children from homes that are safe or could be made safe with the right kinds of help,” he wrote in a Dec. 18 e-mail to the Arizona Capitol Times. —