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Pieces missing in abuse records
By CURTIS KRUEGER, Times Staff Writer A task force hired to help the state reduce a huge backlog of child abuse cases discovered hundreds of documents were missing from state files in a Central Florida county, former task force employees say. That meant the Pinellas Park-based task force had to revisit scores of family members in 2000 and 2001, reinvestigating cases the state already had begun. The state last week canceled multimillion-dollar contracts with the task force, citing allegations that workers pressured to close cases had falsified reports. But the disclosure of the missing file documents suggests for the first time that, with Florida's backlog of cases at peak levels, the state Department of Children and Families itself became a part of the problem. In fact, an internal DCF audit last year indicates task force officials complained that DCF was endangering children by failing to aggressively investigate its own cases. In one instance, the task force learned of an abuse case so severe that the child had suffered a fractured skull. DCF said it closed its investigation of the case because the parents were in divorce court, and the court presumably would look after the child. Child advocate Jack Levine, president of the Center for Florida's Children, said the developments raise disturbing questions about DCF's handling of the backlog. "The plot thickens," Levine said. Told of the missing documents, Levine said, "Let's add this up and it does not make logical sense for these papers to be missing." One DCF official said the department has tightened control of its documents. "I think we're doing a much better job of that," said Patrick Howard, DCF administrator for five counties, including Lake, cited by former task force workers as the worst for missing documents. Task force workers say they received hundreds of files in Lake County which contained no more than sketchy initial abuse reports. They said the files frequently were missing records. Informed of those allegations, Howard said he was unaware of the "magnitude" of such claims. "I think that's going to have to be something that the inspector general's going to have to continue looking into," he said. The inspector general last year investigated an allegation that two Lake County DCF employees in Tavares "improperly removed chronological notes" from abuse files to thwart the task force. Investigators disagreed with that allegation, but concluded that records were lost or missing for reasons they could not determine. The two DCF employees admitted files were lost or misplaced and that security was inadequate. At the time, DCF was fielding so many allegations of abuse and neglect that it fell behind. By January 2001, the state's backlog of abuse cases reached 51,388 cases. DCF hired the nonprofit Florida Task Force for the Protection of Abused and Neglected Children. It was supposed to work like this: The task force would take over low-risk cases that had lingered on the desks of DCF investigators. Using DCF notes and other documentation, the task force would finish any remaining interviews and paperwork and close the cases. But in Lake County, virtually every case the task force received contained little or nothing beyond the initial report called into the state's abuse hotline, said former task force employees Debbie Hansen and Lura Morris. When visiting a family, they often were told that DCF already had been there. DCF employees themselves often confirmed this. But the documentation for such visits was missing, Hansen and Morris said. Hansen, a former DCF employee, said she "pitched a fit" to DCF employees but never got a satisfactory answer about the missing documents. In addition to complaints about missing documents, task force staff also criticized DCF for lax investigations, prompting the internal audit. That audit also found: DCF improperly closed an investigation in a "very serious" abuse case which involved "statements made by victims that go back many years (which) are very credible." DCF stopped investigating an abuse case in which a father refused to let investigators enter his home. His two sons were not in school, appeared to be suffering from mental problems and exhibited signs of "child-on-child sexual abuse." These were not the kind of "low-risk" cases the task force was expecting to receive. DCF spokeswoman Cecka Green said the department's in-house inspector general would investigate "if in fact there may have been some improprieties" in which cases DCF decided to transfer to the task force. State Rep. Charlie Justice, D-St. Petersburg, a member of the House Child and Family Security Committee, said the controversy about the task force raises questions about DCF's oversight. "Each one of these files is a human life," Justice said. "If that doesn't dictate the highest level of oversight, I don't know what does." DCF Secretary Kathleen Kearney has said the system worked appropriately, because the department responded quickly once it learned of allegations the task force may have falsified records. -- Curtis Krueger can be reached at krueger@sptimes.com or by calling (727) 893-8232.
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From the Times state desk
From the state wire
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