Reggie Bicha, executive director of the Colorado Department of Human Services during an interview in May. (Photo By Craig F. Walker / The Denver Post)
The news was what legislators wanted to hear Tuesday: The Colorado Department of Human Services has acted aggressively on the findings of three state audits last year that blasted the holes in the agency’s care for neglected, abused and incarcerated children.
Reggie Bicha, DHS’s executive director, reported to the Legislative Audit Committee that nearly all of the recommendations had been implemented — and steps taken beyond that — except for those that are in the process of being fixed.
“There’s nothing more important that we do in state government than making sure kids are safe when their families aren’t able or aren’t willing to do so,” Bicha said after his report to the committee. “So it’s been an utmost priority for us to work quickly and thoroughly to get these audit findings in place.”
Almost a year ago to the day, a state audit between DHS and the contractor it hired for the Child Protection Ombudsman Program, the watchdog of the child-welfare system. Auditors questioned its independence, if the agency it might criticize has a contract to hold over its head.
Legislators helped remedy that in the last session. , signed by the governor, moved the program out from DHS so that it will be overseen by a board whose members are appointed by the governor, the chief justice of the state Supreme Court and the legislature.
In August a different audit found that there was medication to youths in Colorado corrections facilities.
“When I sat before you last summer and heard the report of the audit finding what struck me most of all is I have an agency that oversees two state hospitals, three regional centers, four nursing homes for our veterans, 10 youth corrections facilities and more than 5,000 children in foster care whose health I share responsibility for, and our agency has no strategic approach (and) no executive leadership as it relates to medical care,” Bicha told the committee. “We have changed that using existing resources.”
Dr. Patrick Fox was in June and strict oversight protocols are either in place or getting there, Bicha said.
And in November a third audit said DHS on when allegations of child neglect or abuse warranted tough investigation. DHS has fixed 25 of the 37 audit findings, and two problems were rendered moot by other changes in the programs. The 10 remaining are in the process of being fixed.
Nonetheless, Bicha said DHS still struggles to get counties to do timely investigations in about 10 percent of the cases.
A study last year said DHS on top of the staff of about 1,800 county child-protection workers, supervisors and support staff to meet the needs. The legislature this year .
While it’s now the law that a child-protection team review every child-welfare case, the reality is the state has about 35,000 cases a year that community volunteers would be asked to review, Bicha said. DHS has asked the attorney general’s office for an opinion on which cases should be reviewed, to try to shorten that list.
Bicha said that even though the office is doing everything auditors and legislators have requested, there still more work to do — including for the legislative budget-writers, law enforcement and local communities.
“We can technically comply with the audit findings, but it doesn’t necessarily fix some of the problems,” Bicha said in the hallway after the meeting, his voice resonating up toward the Capitol dome. “We shared with the committee about child protection teams or the need for more case workers to actually go out and see kids are really the pieces that are going to help us get over the line to make sure child-welfare cases are done well, are done thoroughly and are done comprehensively in addition to complying with the audit findings.”
