Short staffing leaves hotlines struggling to take, investigate abuse reports

By SHERRY HALBROOK

Newspapers, blogs, radio and TV

programs are rife with condemnations of state government as fat and bloated, and state employees as lazy and overpaid. The obvious way to balance the state

budget, these self-proclaimed pundits say, is to layoff state workers and cut their pay. “No one

understands better than PEF members just how far off-base and unfair those charges are,” said PEF President Ken Brynien. “In truth, many

state agencies have been losing staff for years and are struggling to meet the service standards set for them by law,” he said. What sorts of services? Try the child

abuse hotline and investigations of professional misconduct charges. New Yorkers assume if they call the

state hotline to report child abuse, their call will be immediately answered and their allegations investigated quickly. Likewise, if the pharmacist gives them

the wrong medication, if their root canals fail and their front teeth turn black, or the architect dangerously botched the design for their home, New Yorkers rely on the state to investigate their complaints and yank the licenses of professionals who fall below acceptable standards.

‘Please hold’

But what really happens if you place

one of the 375,000 calls this year to the hotline to report suspected child abuse or neglect? According to PEF Division 234

members who answer those calls, you may be put on hold for 20 or even up to 30 minutes before someone is available to take down your information. “Callers receive an

automated response that tells them to hang up and call the police if it’s an emergency,” said Janet Ludwig, Division 234

NYS Child Abuse Hotline 1-800-342-3720

council leader and a supervisor on the hotline. “So, at least, people aren’t holding the line waiting to tell us an assault is in progress. But if they need to report suspected abuse, they must wait until someone can take their call.” That’s especially rough on the tens of thousands of teachers, child care workers, doctors, nurses, emergency medical technicians and others who are required by law to report any signs of child abuse they encounter. “We receive an

average of 1,200 to 1,400 hotline calls every day,” Ludwig

said, “and about one-third of those reports of suspected abuse turn out to be founded. “The number of calls goes up as we

approach the end of the school year, because many teachers, nurses, counselors and others file reports they hope will cause county or city child protective workers to keep a watchful eye on vulnerable children over the summer vacation. “Can you imagine how hard it is for

these mandated professionals, even doctors, to hold the line for up to half-an- hour waiting to file a single report?” Ludwig asked.

Why the long waits?

Under the terms of a legal settlement,

the state Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) agreed to answer at least 86 percent of the hotline calls within one minute, but short staffing and increasing call loads have driven down the agency’s ability to meet that commitment. “We absolutely are not able to keep to

that standard,” Ludwig said. The hotline operates around-the-clock

LUDWIG

Page 6—The Communicator April 2010

every day of the year. However, about two years ago, OCFS stopped using overlapping shifts that had helped assure adequate coverage during breaks, vacations, illnesses and other temporary, but frequent drains on the number of child protective specialist 1s (CPS1s) available to answer calls. The agency has just 150 authorized

CPS1 positions to cover all the hours of all

the days in the year. However, 11 of those positions are vacant. Supervisors (CPS2s), such as Ludwig,

are the next line of defense and must fill in the gaps. “Every single day, they put supervisors

on the hotline to help answer calls,” said Ludwig, who often works 10-12 hour days.” Answering hotline calls is not a regular

duty of the supervisors. They are supposed to be available to speak to callers whose reports don’t quite fit the criteria, supervise the CPS1s, and process complaints from people who want the findings of local child protective investigators to be reviewed by the state. That workload is about to grow

exponentially because a legal settlement was reached in February that requires OCFS to notify 25,000 people currently on the NYS Abuse and Maltreatment Register they can file new requests for hearings and reviews of their cases. These people were denied hearings

between 2003 and 2007 and, so long as their names remain on the register, they are barred from jobs that routinely would put them in contact with children. “Our biggest staffing shortage is in the

CPS1s, but we also are down one supervisor, a manager and an administrator,” Ludwig said. “It takes six to eight months to get approval to fill a vacancy and, while we wait, more people get burned out and leave.” Because the hotline jobs are

considered essential, they have not been subject to the elimination of vacant positions the way jobs at most state agencies have been. Nevertheless, the hotline ranks are desperately thin.

Enforcing high standards

Understaffing of the child abuse hotline

is not an aberration. It’s emblematic of a problem cropping up every day throughout state services. PEF Executive Board

SACHS

member Bill Sachs, a senior professional conduct investigator at the state Education Department’s Office of Professional Discipline (OPD), said it, too, is trying to respond to a critical public need, even as its

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