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Children's Services reports lower turnover, outlines budget requests including foster-care modernization
Summary
Commissioner Margie Quinn told the committee March 5 that DCS has reduced case-manager turnover and opened clinical assessment beds, and outlined budget requests that include raising foster-care extension age to 23 and adjustments tied to the Brian A. settlement.
Department of Children's Services Commissioner Margie Quinn told the Finance, Ways and Means Committee on March 5 that the agency has reduced staff turnover and is pursuing a set of budget items intended to modernize foster-care services and strengthen child-protection infrastructure.
Quinn said the agency's 12-month case-manager turnover rate has fallen to 11.9 percent for the first seven months of the current fiscal year, down from 16.9 percent last year and 20.7 percent in 2023. She said the agency's open case-manager positions fell from 692 at the time she took office to 258 on the day of the hearing. Quinn said the department converted 50 long-open positions to case-manager roles in February and that a new case-manager training class was scheduled to start April 28 with 75 new hires.
Quinn also said the department opened 72 new clinical assessment beds to reduce the number of children in transitional settings and that a funded DCS real-estate plan would create the agency's first statewide facility designed for leading-practice care. Quinn tied several budget items to program goals: an administration bill to modernize extension of foster care would raise the age limit from 21 to 23, and recurring budget lines include cost-of-living increases for foster-care rates, adoption assistance and subsidized permanent guardianship, she said. Quinn noted the latter items were part of obligations the department has under the Brian A. settlement agreement.
Quinn introduced deputy commissioner and chief of staff Andy Verensky, assistant commissioner of finance Mohammed L. Casey, executive director of network development Frank Mix and director of legislative affairs Jim Layman, and said DCS would discuss a supplemental request recalculating the residential custodial budget as part of the ongoing appropriation conversation.
No formal committee votes were taken during the presentation; Quinn and staff answered members' questions and said they would follow up with additional fiscal details where requested.
The department's data on turnover, hiring and bed counts formed the center of the presentation, and the department asked the committee to consider its budget proposals in that operational context.
