Nevada subcommittee reviews DCFS budgets as ARPA funds sunset; staffing shifts, IT replacement and victims vendor draw scrutiny

The Joint Subcommittee on Human Services heard presentations from the Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS) at a hybrid hearing in Carson City and Las Vegas covering multiple DCFS budget accounts, including family support programs, child and adolescent services, victims-of-crime compensation, information services and the child welfare trust.

The discussion focused on four recurring themes: planned eliminations of positions funded temporarily with American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars, transfers and conversions of clinical roles between Northern and Southern Nevada, efforts to secure federal Title IV‑E prevention reimbursements, and replacement or reprocurement of key technology and vendor contracts used to deliver payments and case- management services.

DCFS Administrator Marla McDade Williams said the governor’s recommended budget would “follow the department of human division of human resources management process for issuing layoff notices for filled positions, if needed,” and that the agency will try to place incumbent employees into other open positions where possible. Committee members asked repeatedly how many filled positions would be affected; McDade Williams said three filled state positions currently face potential elimination in one account and described the reductions as largely the sunset of ARPA-funded staffing.

Committee members raised questions about specific accounts. For budget account 3146 (Family Support Programs) staff described several decision units: requests for new quality-assurance staff to support the children’s mental health block grant, a contract for data collection and analysis, authority to accept a Title IV‑E prevention plan award, and transfers of some positions to DCFS’s Office of Analytics. Kelsey McCann Navarro, DCFS administrative services officer, told the panel that the agency had located matching funds for the Title IV‑E prevention plan “—we do have the match. It's in a different, category. We just need to make a adjustment so that we do have the match for that, so we can bring in those funds, the federal dollars.”

On child and adolescent services, DCFS said it plans to convert some hard-to-fill FTEs to contract staff at Desert Willow Treatment Center and elsewhere. Decision units proposed eliminating about 20.51 full-time-equivalent positions while restoring a smaller number of permanent slots and adding contract authority; another decision would transfer 12 mental-health counselor positions into the Southern Nevada account from juvenile-justice funding. McDade Williams and clinicians explained recruiting difficulties, saying clinical pay and private-sector competition have limited the agency’s ability to hire and retain state-employed clinicians.

Dr. Jacqueline Wade, speaking for Southern Nevada Child and Adolescent Services, said the transfer of at least one clinical program manager and psychiatric caseworker positions to Northern Nevada was prompted by an increase in cases up north and relatively lower demand in the South: “The reasoning for the transfer of the position is we are seeing an increase in our cases in the North, and we do have adequate capacity in the South.” She added the intent is to increase access to services in the North, not to require current Southern staff to relocate.

Lawmakers asked whether converting FTEs to contract positions would affect continuity, accountability or conflicts of interest. McDade Williams said contract clinicians are held to the same standards and that both contractors and state FTEs must submit secondary-employment forms for conflict checks. “We do hold them to the same standards as the state FTEs in terms of how they provide care in our facilities,” she said, adding that contracting sometimes makes personnel changes administratively easier.

On victims-of-crime compensation (budget account referenced during the hearing), DCFS proposed replacing one-time ARPA support with general-fund appropriations and requested three compensation specialist positions plus an online payment and application system. Several members expressed concern about the vendor currently under contract, Cost Containment Strategies, noting the firm’s name could create a poor perception for victims. McDade Williams said DCFS controls payments and would verify how vendor communications appear to claimants; she also told the committee the agency plans an RFP to assess alternative vendors and to seek a system that provides back-end data access for the Office of Analytics.

The Unity case-management system, which DCFS said is needed to maintain eligibility for certain federal Title IV‑E reimbursements, is slated for replacement with an ARPA-supported project. DCFS said it has completed a needs assessment and intends to go to RFP; an earlier work program noted to the committee estimated an IFC-approved ARPA total of about $31,100,000 for the replacement project. Agency leadership told lawmakers any new system will likely be an off-the-shelf product that reduces the need for in-house programming, and that future biennial budget requests will seek ongoing support once project costs are final.

On the Child Welfare Trust (budget account 3242), DCFS staff said a proposed statutory change would eliminate the state deduction for cost of care, contingent on enabling legislation, and that the agency already creates separate accounts for children who receive benefits so distributions can be managed when youth age out of care.

During the public-comment period, Sabrina Schnur, executive director of Foster Kinship Nevada, urged the state to maximize Title IV‑E funding for evidence-based kinship navigator programs, citing examples from other states and arguing that leveraging federal match would expand sustainable support for kinship caregivers.

Committee members and DCFS staff said they are coordinating with the Governor’s Finance Office on a series of technical budget amendments to correct line-item and program categorizations that staff described as oversights. No formal votes occurred during the hearing; agency officials told the subcommittee they would return with corrections or amendments and continue to update fiscal staff on potential federal funding changes that could affect program capacity.