More than a month has passed since Rep. Katie Hobbs, D-Phoenix, asked Senate President Steve Pierce, R-Prescott, to convene the Child Protective Services Oversight Committee and fulfill a legal obligation to find solutions for the challenges the agency is facing. The request has gone unanswered.
This week, Hobbs renewed the call to Pierce, and she also sent the request to Gov. Jan Brewer. Hobbs’ second attempt to encourage the creation of the committee follows a Department of Economic Security budget request in early October that highlighted a need to hire 200 more CPS employees to maintain current workloads in the upcoming year. This number is in addition to the 200 CPS employees hired earlier this year.
DES reports indicated that there were more than 14,000 Arizona children in foster care in August 2012. An Arizona Children’s Action Alliance analysis of DES data indicates that reports of child abuse and neglect have increased 24 percent since October 2009. As of September 2012, more than a third of the abuse and neglect investigations started between July 2011 and May 2012 were still open.
The CPS Oversight Committee was established to develop a framework for working together to ensure that CPS is operating as efficiently and effectively as possible.
The CPS Oversight Committee, created by HB 2249, is mandated to identify areas of improvement for the agency and to make recommendations by Nov. 15, 2012. To date, the committee, which is supposed to include several state legislators, a representative from DES, a member of a law enforcement agency, a CPS caseworker, a foster parent, and a guardian, has not been created.
The deadline for the committee’s report is less than a month away, and Hobbs says that Pierce “has been silent on this issue. This is about the safety of Arizona children. It can’t wait any longer; the stakes are too high.”
Pierce has been busy shoring up support for his campaign to remain the Senate President. His leadership is at risk due to his failure to support his fellow Republicans in the 2012 General Election.