SYRACUSE, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) — Union members who work for the Department of Children and Family Services for Onondaga County say they are facing a critical staffing shortage that’s existed for years, but now, has been made worse by the pandemic.
According to representatives in the CSEA DSS unit, the shortage is to the point where they are drowning. And the staffing shortage has been compounded by the fact that several people who work for the county and the Department of Children and Family Services have left in the last year. Some also took a retirement incentive.
Members of the CSEA say though the number of abuse reports has generally gone down, those positions left vacant at the start of the pandemic were never filled. So caseworkers are now on double-duty, picking up where others left off while dealing with more cases of severe physical abuse, which they say are more time-consuming.
Caseworkers say they’re struggling to meet state mandates, which require each case to be closed within 60 days, meaning they don’t believe the child is in imminent danger anymore. They are meeting most of those deadlines but union members say the quality of that work just isn’t what it used to be.
“The state gives certain recommendations for each level of case at each one of those brackets within the department, every single one is exceeded, and everyone is exhausted and drowning and begging for staff and creating solutions that, unfortunately, we just aren’t getting,” said Blair Banks, CSEA DSS Unit Treasurer and a representative in the Onondaga County DCFS.
Representatives sent a letter to management last month calling for help. And when management received the letter, they say they were taken back.
Ann Rooney, Deputy County Executive in the Human Services Department, says this letter which details the critical staffing shortage, contains misinformation.
Rooney says like many other departments right now, DCFS did lose people during the pandemic, through retirement incentives and employees leaving. The department is also seeing at least a 20% cut in funding. But, according to best practice, Rooney says they do have the number of people they need to handle the caseload right now. Employees who left were not immediately replaced because the numbers didn’t call for it.
To date, there are 40 caseworkers on staff at DCFS. The state recommends each caseworker opens no more than three cases a week. Rooney says caseworkers are getting that work done and the backlog actually shows up at the 60-day limit when a supervisor needs to sign off on closing a case.
“I would say across the board, our child welfare investigators are 100% doing their job. Nobody is on a backlog plan. When they hand it off to their supervisor, that’s our next layer that we are actually looking into right now — that they did not sign off on the cases in a timely manner,” Rooney said.
Union members with the CSEA did respond to that claim, saying since there are more severe cases of abuse with less caseworkers to handle each report, it is creating a backlog. But they say it’s not because they’re intentionally holding off on closing the case, it’s because they just don’t have the manpower.
The county is working on training and hiring at least 10 new caseworkers but it could take eight months to hire and train each new employee.
A rally led by the Syracuse Democratic Socialists of America is being held Tuesday at noon in Columbus Circle in support of the union members.