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发帖数: 29846 | 1 PHOENIX (AP) — Five senior Arizona child welfare employees who officials
said orchestrated a plan that led to more than 6,500 Arizona child abuse and
neglect cases being closed without investigations were fired Wednesday in
the first major personnel action since the cases were discovered in November.
Charles Flanagan, who heads a new state child welfare agency created in the
wake of discovery of the closed cases, said an additional senior
administrator at the state agency that formerly oversaw Child Protective
Services was also fired Wednesday.
Flanagan briefed reporters after state police completed an investigation
into what led to reports phoned into a state child abuse and neglect hotline
not being investigated starting in late 2009. The discovery of the cases
led Gov. Jan Brewer to pull CPS from its parent agency and create a new
cabinet level post led by Flanagan to oversee child welfare cases statewide.
Flanagan said the five upper-level managers and administrators he fired were
responsible for creating and overseeing the case closings against policy
and in violation of state laws. He said they not only knew that what they
were doing was against policy but took steps to keep their actions secret.
"There was a lack of policy, a lack of procedure, lack in systems, people
made decisions that they actually documented that they knew were wrong and
did them anyway," Flanagan said. "They made decisions and failed to
communicate those appropriately."
All six were at-will employees, meaning that they could be fired without
cause.
The state police report, delivered to Flanagan last Friday, was also
released Wednesday. Flanagan said it contained no revelations that had not
been revealed in a previous report he oversaw that was released in January
that found troubling problems in CPS.
The five senior workers fired Wednesday had been on administrative leave
since early December. They created a system to screen hotline reports and
prevent them from being sent to field workers as a way to reduce a crushing
workload on the field workers. The group had become what Flanagan called "
the de facto leadership of CPS under the Division of Child Safety and Family
Services."
"And they made a determination that with the increase in calls and cases
that it was a crushing workload, they couldn't do the workload," he said. "
And so they made the decision, a very bad decision, a dysfunctional decision
, to remove cases from the field."
A team led by Flanagan is reviewing all of the nearly 6,600 cases that were
not investigated between late 2009 and last November. So far, 550 children
have been removed from their homes, and one in six of the cases had
supplemental investigations.
Brewer pulled CPS from the Department of Economic Security in January and
appointed Flanagan to lead a new agency called the Division of Child Safety
& Family Services. DES is a massive state agency that also oversees
unemployment benefits, Medicaid, welfare and many other social programs.
DES Director Clarence Carter remains in his job, and Flanagan said he saw no
evidence that he knew of the actions of his employees. Carter's staff
released a letter he sent to staff Wednesday saying he had appointed an
interim Director of Programs after taking "appropriate and necessary
personnel action."
A DES spokeswoman confirmed that Deputy Director for Programs Sharon
Sergeant was fired.
"The Department of Public Safety issued its administrative review of the '
Not Investigated' CPS cases," Carter wrote. "The review paints a very
troubling picture of poor policy, practice, communication and decision-
making that ultimately put many vulnerable Arizona Children in harm's way."
Flanagan echoed that conclusion.
"These people that made these decisions at a managerial level and at an
administrative level should have known better that this is not an
appropriate way to do business," Flanagan said. |
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