Seeking to end 20 years of federal court rule, the state has filed a motion to end federal oversight of the Department of Children and Families.
If approved, the end of the oversight of the state’s long-troubled child welfare system would save the state millions of dollars in future lawyers’ fees and federal court monitoring costs. So far, the state has spent more than $10 million on such fees through the years.
The oversight has lasted for four governors in a highly publicized case, known as the Juan F. consent decree, that has led to major changes in the troubled department. The federal court monitoring, which has cost the state millions of dollars, was established following a class-action lawsuit filed against the state in December 1989 that said Connecticut’s child welfare system was in a state of “systemic, ongoing crisis.”
Two decades later, the state now says it has made enough progress that the monitoring can be lifted.
“The system that existed 20 years ago has been dramatically, substantially changed, and federal court oversight is no longer needed,” DCF Commissioner Susan Hamilton said. “We’ve been operating this system effectively for years. … In our case, there’s clearly no longer a need for this to continue. There’s no risk of it reverting back to the way it was 20 years ago.”
Hamilton added, “It is time to stop spending millions of taxpayer dollars on lawyers and monitoring in a case that is no longer necessary.”
DCF’s motion was filed one day after the group that filed the original lawsuit, Children’s Rights Inc. of New York City, said that the state has failed to make court-ordered improvements to better care for abused and neglected children. In a letter to the state, the group said it would be forced to go back to the federal court if changes are not made in the coming months.
“Connecticut has continued to backslide on reforms,” said Ira Lustbader, an attorney with Children’s Rights. “These kids simply cannot wait another eight months for a new administration and for state officials to begin to make good on its promises.”
Gov. M. Jodi Rell, who was serving as a young state legislator from Brookfield when the original case was filed, is strongly backing the state’s motion.
“Working together, we have utterly transformed the way the state cares for children and families in crisis,” Rell said in a statement. “These are no cosmetic fixes – they are changes that run through the very bedrock of the agency. We have amply demonstrated Connecticut’s lasting commitment to improved training, care and services. It is now time to end the costly oversight process and return management of DCF to the state.”
Since the lawsuit was filed, the department’s overall budget has more than tripled – from about $250 million per year to the current level of more than $820 million. DCF has been in the headlines through the years following the tragic deaths of children, and the much-criticized department has had multiple commissioners since the federal case began during the administration of Gov. William A. O’Neill.
In addition to a much larger budget, the state says the department has shown improvements with better training, improved record-keeping, and more staff in a huge agency that now has about 3,400 employees. The state also says the number of children in state care has been reduced by 31 percent and caseloads for social workers have dropped by two-thirds since the original case started.
The state and lawyers for Children’s Rights Inc. have been trying to resolve the case for years. In an attempt to resolve the issue, the two sides agreed to an exit plan in 2003. As part of the exit plan, they agreed to an outline of 22 specific goals that needed to be met in order to end the case. DCF says that it is “meeting or nearly meeting” 20 of those 22 goals and has thus shown substantial progress.
The plaintiffs have countered that the state has failed on two key goals in the plan that cover treatment plans and whether children’s needs are met. Each goal can be highly complicated, generating reams of legal briefs through the years.
The case’s court file is among the largest in state history – covering numerous motions and counter-motions over a 20-year period. The court’s docket sheet has more than 480 entries since 1992 alone.
In a case that rivals the Sheff vs. O’Neill education battle for longevity, the Juan F. consent decree covers abused and neglected children who are in such dire circumstances that they need the state’s intervention.
The state’s motion to end the oversight was filed in front of U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Droney in Hartford, who has taken over the case after years of oversight by longtime senior federal judge Alan H. Nevas.