Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Nonjudicial Agencies topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Public guardian, child advocate and nursing‑home commission press for modest increases and staffing changes
Summary
Three agencies usually grouped inside the judicial budget — the Office of the Public Guardian, the Office of the Child Advocate and the Delaware Nursing Home Residents Quality Assurance Commission — told the Joint Finance Committee they need small, targeted budget changes to maintain operations and address rising workload.
Three agencies usually grouped inside the judicial budget told the Joint Finance Committee they need small, targeted budget changes to maintain operations and address rising workload.
The Office of the Public Guardian asked for $9,000 to move its aging financial case‑management software to a web‑based, vendor‑hosted system and for one additional full‑time guardianship case manager in New Castle County; the office also asked to convert a casual seasonal monitoring position to a permanent FTE.
“The financial case management system will cease to exist if it's not converted,” Alexandra McFassel, the public guardian, told the committee. She said the office manages more than $2 million in client resources and that the current desktop application is becoming obsolete.
The Office of the Child Advocate (OCA) described long‑running workload and staffing pressures and renewed its request for a position tied to juvenile trafficking reviews that lawmakers have considered previously. Tanya Cawley, Delaware’s child advocate, told the committee OCA now employs 46 staff and contractors, has absorbed CASA into its operations and operates a cloud‑based child welfare data system. Cawley said OCA needs a dedicated staff position to support retrospective and real‑time multi‑disciplinary reviews of juvenile trafficking cases and to manage statutory reporting obligations tied to proposed legislation (House Bill 170).
“Because OCA's work is resulting in better identification of these juvenile trafficking cases,” Cawley said, the office needs permanent staffing to handle oversight and reviews.
The Delaware Nursing Home Residents Quality Assurance Commission asked for a small increase — $8,500 — to cover contractual supplies and travel for newly added staff and to fund modest administrative needs after the commission received one full‑time administrative specialist and a casual seasonal data analyst in the current fiscal year. Margaret Bailey, the commission’s executive director, said the panel also wants to develop resident satisfaction surveys and a data‑portal repository as future priorities.
Commission chair Lisa Ferber asked the committee to annualize the administrative specialist’s salary for fiscal year 26 and to keep the commission under the administrative office of the courts until a suitable permanent home — such as an inspector general’s office, should one be created — is available.
Committee members asked for follow‑up on whether these requests had been submitted previously and where the agencies had previously drawn funding. Staff explained the agencies historically were managed inside the judiciary budget; this year they were presented separately so the committee could hear each agency’s priorities directly.
Members of the public and advocates joined the hearing to support the funding requests. Gregory Berney, an attorney appointed as guardian in chancery matters, described frequent calls to the public guardian for interim guardianship and asked the committee to continue allowing the Office of the Public Guardian direct budget presentations. Dan Atkins, executive director of Community Legal Aid Society, and advocates for restorative justice also pressed for increased civil legal services funding in separate testimony during the hearing.
