Chaffee Quits as County Chief of Child Services

Robert L. Chaffee, the embattled head of the Los Angeles County Department for Children’s Services, submitted his resignation Thursday under mounting criticism of his agency and pressure from the County Board of Supervisors.

The decision came in the wake of disclosures that Chaffee and other top department officials had permitted two foster homes to remain in operation for several years after their investigators warned that parents there had physically and sexually abused children. The parents were prominent leaders of foster parent associations that meet routinely with county officials.

In a letter hand-carried to County Administrative Officer Richard B. Dixon--delivered three hours after Supervisor Mike Antonovich called publicly for him to step down--Chaffee said he was leaving his $109,200-a-year-job “with mixed emotions.”

“This decision is based upon my personal interests and needs,” Chaffee wrote, “as well as a desire to assist in improving the current environment for providing the much-needed children’s services in Los Angeles County.”

But Antonovich said the board could “no longer put the health and well-being of our children at risk.” He called for a “top to bottom” reorganization of the department, including the removal of Chaffee and his “top lieutenants.” It was unclear whether any other officials would resign.

Antonovich later added that he and other supervisors were prepared to fire Chaffee if he did not step down. “He knew the votes were there to remove him,” Antonovich said.

Chaffee’s resignation comes one month after the Legislature declared it had “no confidence” in his ability to protect the county’s 50,000 abused and neglected children and threatened to strip the county of control over its $457-million child-welfare system. His decision to leave could be the first step toward enabling the county to fend off a state takeover of the department.

Although Chaffee said he would stay on the job until Oct. 31, Supervisor Ed Edelman said that on Tuesday he will call a closed-door meeting to see if the board can immediately replace the 58-year-old department director. Edelman said Chaffee’s poor relations with state officials make it “important that we get an interim director on board as quickly as possible.”

Chaffee could not be reached for comment Thursday.

In any case, Chaffee, who has worked 32 years for the county, will not completely sever his ties to county government. Dixon said that as part of the agreement to quit, Chaffee will receive a one-year contract paying about $90,000 to act as consultant to Dixon “in an area other than children’s services.”

Child advocates, including some members of the county Commission on Children’s Services, have been calling for Chaffee’s resignation for weeks. In a letter to the Board of Supervisors last month, the commission suggested that “a major change in attitude and leadership” is necessary if the county is to keep local control.

“It’s about time,” said Commissioner Nancy Daly upon learning of Chaffee’s resignation. “That’s all I can say. It’s just a shame that it has taken so long.”

Carole Shauffer, a lawyer with the Youth Law Center, a national child-advocacy group based in San Francisco, said: “We are happy to see the supervisors are finally taking this situation for children in Los Angeles County seriously and are finally recognizing that there is a basic problem with children’s services. . . . We think it’s a good first step.”

A major factor in pressuring Chaffee to leave, according to Antonovich, was the recent disclosure that a veteran county social worker had stated publicly a year ago that he believed the county was too quick to brand sexual activity involving children as “abuse.”

The social worker, Gerald Davis, was arrested on child-molestation charges last week. Although the children’s services officials knew of his views a year ago, Davis was not removed from his job as a supervisor until his arrest. He has pleaded innocent.

On the heels of the Davis case, Antonovich said, a Times article on Thursday detailed how county officials overruled the recommendations of their investigators who argued in 1986 and 1987 that the licenses of two foster homes be revoked.

In one case, Chaffee was told that a foster father “had a history of alleged child sexual abuse.” The other case involved a foster mother who allegedly beat her children with electrical cords.

In his press statement, Antonovich called the actions of county managers “unacceptable.”

Not all the supervisors were critical of Chaffee, however. Kenneth Hahn, who has stood by Chaffee in the past, said the state is to blame for the department’s troubles.

“It is too bad he is being made the scapegoat for the lack of funding that is provided to him by the state of California,” Hahn said of Chaffee. “He had a very difficult task taking over that department. He has done a commendable job.”

Indeed, just as Chaffee leaves the agency in troubled times, there were troubles when he took over in November, 1985. The fledgling agency--created in 1984 to address a multitude of problems--had already seen its first director come and go in a storm of controversy.

Chaffee, a 20-year veteran welfare administrator, was brought in to stabilize a department that had been rocked by clashes between its former director, Lola Hobbs, and many of the people on the citizens’ commission that advised the department. When he arrived, Chaffee encountered low employee morale and rising child abuse caseloads, among other problems.

Chaffee has been credited with improving working conditions in the department and with overseeing a drastic improvement of MacLaren’s Children’s Center, a county emergency shelter for children that suffered from severe overcrowding.

In recent months, however, child advocates and officials of the state Department for Social Services have complained that the county’s Department for Children’s Services--the only county agency in the state devoted solely to children’s issues--has done little, if anything, to address the problems it was created to overcome.

Last month, the state seized 15 cabinets full of county foster care records; state officials say the records show the county has repeatedly failed to take action against allegedly abusive foster parents. In the wake of threats by the state to strip the county of its authority to license foster homes, the county gave up its licensing authority in June.

Soon afterward, the Legislature issued its “no confidence” declaration and ordered the county to come up with a compliance plan by Oct. 1 or face a state takeover of the entire children’s services system.

Despite the announcement of Chaffee’s resignation, state officials said Thursday that the county will still be required to submit the so-called “corrective action plan” and that if they are not satisfied with it, they will take over the department.

Kathleen Norris, spokeswoman for the state Department of Social Services, said “a change in management alone is not necessarily going to correct the situation if there is no change in the way business is done.”