Chief of County Children’s Agency Quits

Peter Digre, the embattled chief of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, resigned Thursday after eight years that saw him markedly raise the agency’s goals for foster care but alienate many of his social workers and political supporters.

Digre’s departure comes after months of rumors that his bosses on the county Board of Supervisors had grown disillusioned with the onetime reformer and planned to oust him.

Digre was seen as a brilliant strategist and national leader on child welfare issues, but one who sometimes stumbled while implementing his ideas and who alienated his staff with his obstreperous management style.

In the end, Digre, 54, said that he loved running the child welfare agency but came to view the job as the most difficult of its kind in the country.

“I love the idea of having some time when I am in the private sector,” he said in an interview, adding that he will remain on the job through June 30 to complete a budget for the coming fiscal year.

Digre plans to become a a consultant for other children’s agencies, both public and private. He said he had already received many job offers, adding, “I feel very positive about this change.”

He insisted that he was leaving the $139,105-a-year post of his own volition. One county supervisor conceded recently that he could not muster the votes to remove Digre from his job, which oversees 75,000 abused and neglected children.

Despite Digre’s previous problems, his resignation caught the Board of Supervisors and even his closest aides off guard.

Only county Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen had been informed that Digre might leave. Digre came to The Times on Thursday morning and presented a copy of his resignation letter to a reporter.

The supervisors are in Washington lobbying for health care funds and only learned about Digre’s intentions when a reporter telephoned. Top managers at the agency’s headquarters got the news the same way.

“Everyone here is just stunned,” said a top assistant at the children’s agency’s headquarters. “He gave no indication this was coming.”

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky issued a statement from Washington, praising Digre and saying that the hunt for a successor to “usher in a new era” would begin immediately. Despite Thursday’s pronouncements, Yaroslavsky and others previously made it clear that Digre had worn out his welcome.

State Takeover Averted

The energetic leader arrived on Jan. 1, 1991, at a time when the department was doing such a poor job that the state threatened to take it over. Among other problems, social workers routinely failed to visit foster children.

Digre quickly insisted that social workers make at least one visit a month to each child and complete a safety “checklist.” Digre also pressed social workers to check the criminal backgrounds of relatives and other potential caregivers. He got nurses to advise social workers about children’s medications and other issues.

Digre developed a network of “family preservation” agencies that help troubled parents get counseling, classes and therapy. His push for more adoptions doubled the number of children put into permanent homes.

Digre had a gift for building programs that would attract state and federal funding. He doubled the department budget to about $1 billion.

But many of the improvements came only after complaints from the press or public that children were suffering. Critics said that Digre would launch a promising program, only to lose focus.

“You never could predict which way things were going to shift,” said Helen Kleinberg, a longtime member of the county Commission on Children and Families, who supported many of Digre’s initiatives. “Peter had a way of saying things in meetings, but often nothing would really come of it.”

Many social workers became deeply embittered during Digre’s tenure. They felt that he constantly piled on new work and reports to be filed on, for example, each child’s medical history, education and prospects for adoption. Each report seemed justified in itself, but, cumulatively, the paperwork overwhelmed many workers, they said.

The burden only became worse when the recession and crack cocaine epidemic threw more parents into distress. Reports of child neglect and abuse reached an all-time high in the mid-1990s. About one in 15 foster children in America lived in the county. As workers’ caseloads jumped, some believed that Digre moved too slowly to hire new workers.

With abuse reports finally beginning to taper off in recent months and with more social workers on board, workloads have decreased. More than a third of social workers once had caseloads considered excessive under their contracts, compared with fewer than one in 10 today.

To some extent, Digre’s problems in Los Angeles County seem endemic to the child welfare field. Top foster care officials in New York and many other cities also initiated some reforms, only to become the objects of intense criticism.

But in Los Angeles, Digre too often alienated his allies. Co-workers reported that he screamed at them during meetings.

A series of critical audits and news reports beginning in 1996 continued Digre’s difficulties.

A consultant said his failure to build teamwork might lead to an “implosion” of his middle management. Shortly afterward, The Times reported on overcrowding and alleged mistreatment of residents at the county children’s home, MacLaren Children’s Center.

Then last year, The Times reported that the county child abuse hotline put some calls on hold for up to an hour, lost other calls and gave only cursory review to still others.

Digre responded quickly to that last crisis, beefing up hotline staffing and reducing waiting time on the emergency system to a few minutes. But critics said the situation typified an agency often tripping from one crisis to the next.

Digre’s critics were again abuzz this January, when The Times reported that he was under investigation for allegedly giving favorable treatment to a foster mother who was one of his political allies.

According to some familiar with the situation, Digre had two of his top deputies temporarily intervene, after lower-ranking employees accused the foster mother, Sandra Rodriguez, of abusing children in her care.

The county Sheriff’s Department and Auditor Controller’s Department both investigated Digre’s involvement with the woman. Reports that Digre would be forced to leave swirled through the county Hall of Administration.

But he denied that he had offered Rodriguez any special treatment and, as in so many crises before, it appeared that he had survived.

On Thursday, County Counsel Lloyd W. Pellman said the investigation of Digre’s actions was completed two or three weeks ago. Pellman said he reported to the Board of Supervisors that Digre gave “no favorable treatment” to the foster mother.

Times staff writer Nick Riccardi contributed to this report.