A Billion Dollar Question

Los Angeles County officials, and the people they serve, suffer from a longtime allergic reaction to comprehensive audits, which can determine how well a program has been run. Take the county’s beleaguered Department of Children and Family Services, which has roughly 5,000 employees and a yearly budget of nearly $1 billion. More important, the small army of children it serves are among the county’s most vulnerable residents. Abused, neglected or abandoned kids are not going to storm the county offices to demand better services. They depend on the adults, and they are being let down.

Until this week, the supervisors had never ordered a comprehensive audit of this 14-year-old department. Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Don Knabe finally called for one this week. Why so long in coming?

In the current situation, county officials are unable to act decisively because they do not know how the gargantuan department spends its money and allocates its resources.

Peter Digre, who heads Children and Family Services, sounded positively ecstatic about news of the audit. He says that it will prove what he already knows, that the department “runs on a shoestring” and needs more social workers to meet the needs of the children it oversees. So why didn’t he demand the audit a year ago, or during any of the seven years that he has served as department head?

“Fair question,” he told the Times. “That would be a good strategy.”

The audit was ordered after Times reporters James Rainey and Sonia Nazario reported on the department’s often inadequate response to reports of child abuse and neglect, exacerbated by long waits on the county’s child abuse hotline. The Times report showed that nearly 25% of calls are disposed of without an in-person investigation, and that social workers sometimes are merely cursory in abuse investigations.

Digre insisted Thursday that people can call the hotline (800-540-4000) “with enormous confidence” and complain to him directly (213-351-5600) if there are problems. He added that his social workers have caseloads 20% to 30% higher than state guidelines, and that his department is drowning in court-required paperwork. “Hiring enough social workers,” he said, “has to be the goal of this county.”

The audit, though belated, will help get to the bottom of all this. The supervisors must ensure that the county auditor-controller gets all the outside help he needs to conduct a thorough analysis. The needs of children who have suffered from abuse and neglect demand prompt and thorough attention.