Phoenix Arizona--The committee currently tasked with overseeing Arizona’s
Department of Child Safety held its last quarterly hearing last week. The bottom
line from that hearing was that, although the agency has made some improvements
over the last two years, it remains very much in crisis. But despite the
significant problems his agency continues to face, Director McKay’s testimony
was once again more evasive than transparent.
Many of the problems DCS has faced since its
creation, and which were supposed to be resolved by agency’s
high caseworker turnover rate. And it takes DCS more than twelve months to
find permanent homes for more than two-thirds of children in its system. Every
one of those factors is bad for Arizona’s most vulnerable children.
now,
continue to plague the agency. DCS still has more than 18,000 children in
out-of-home care and more than 4,000 backlogged cases. McKay has not yet solved
his
The
lack of transparency at DCS has been a problem in the past, and members of
the oversight committee repeatedly made it clear during last week’s hearing that
DCS was not providing enough useful information about the agency’s progress.
McKay has resisted recommendations for reform and actually reduced his agency’s
transparency. And there is no evidence that Gov. Ducey will start holding McKay
accountable. It is critical that a new Legislative oversight committee is
established.
Arizonans and their Legislators cannot become complacent
with the marginal progress and limited cooperation that DCS has displayed under
Director McKay. Protecting our most vulnerable children is simply far too
important. McKay needs to truly be held accountable, and the children in our DCS
system need robust legislative oversight to make that happen.