State: Who's watching the children

The head of the Department of Children and Families appeared before a legislative committee Thursday and apologized for a case involving a 5-year-old Miami girl missing for more than a year.

But Kathleen Kearney said the department has made progress on longstanding problems, many of which she blamed on the previous administration.

Gov. Jeb Bush backed Kearney, saying the department she inherited three years ago was in "complete disarray."

"I have confidence in the path that we're on," the governor said. "We still have problems. There's no denying it. ... The biggest issue here is the lack of wholesome love in family life in our state. To expect that the government can fill that void in a perfect fashion is impossible."

But child advocates and some legislators questioned the department's handling of recent cases and called on the Legislature to expand its narrow inquiry.

"I haven't heard child safety as a major concern at all and it scares me to death," said Karen Gievers, president of the Children's Advocacy Foundation. "Keeping these kids safe is the most important thing."

A special House committee met Thursday to begin looking into the department's contracts with outside companies.

And legislators expect to pass a bill next week that would make it a crime to tamper with child abuse records.

But no overall review is being conducted.

"While we have made progress, I believe child protection has a long way to go," said Sen. Anna Cowin, R-Leesburg, who wrote a bill in 1999 to help DCF better deal with cases of repeated abuse. "There's a lot that needs to be done."

It has been a difficult few months for the department.

The statewide Florida Child Abuse Death Review Committee in December found 60 children died from abuse or neglect in 1999 and 2000 even though DCF had previously taken a call about each child. In 10 deaths, DCF had provided "inadequate" response to the allegations.

This spring, the Times reported that a task force hired to help the state reduce a huge backlog of child abuse cases discovered hundreds of documents missing from state files.

On Wednesday, the department acknowledged that Rilya Wilson, whose relatives thought she was in state care, had vanished more than a year ago and no one noticed until last week.

On Thursday, a Pinellas judge told the department it had 72 hours to place four Pinellas children held without reason for months in a county juvenile detention center or he would hold the department in contempt of court.

"We take full and complete responsibility," a somber Kearney told the House committee."I assure you we are doing everything we can."

That didn't satisfy some legislators.

"I don't think we need to play politics," said Rep. Kenneth Gottlieb, a Hollywood Democrat who serves on the committee. "I don't think we can blame this on any administration."

Dexter Douglass, general counsel to Gov. Lawton Chiles, said it's understandable but unfair to blame the former administration even if DCF has been embarrassed in recent months.

"I don't think there is a greatdeal of difference in the problems," he said. "But it's rather common to place blame on previous administration."

Bush, who said the Miami case "broke his heart," asked the Legislature this week to consider a bill to make it a crime to tamper with records, a problem that the department has had before and that surfaced again in the Miami case.

Rilya Wilson's caretaker said someone claiming to be a DCF representative took the girl in late 2000 or early 2001, saying she needed a neurological evaluation. The girl was never returned. The caretaker, Geralyn Graham, who police say is not a suspect, thought Rilya was still with DCF.

State officials in Miami said they never learned about the girl's disappearance because her caseworker falsified paperwork, claiming to make visits to the caretaker's home when she had not. The caseworker has denied wrongdoing.

Kearney said her office is looking into all cases handled by Rilya's caseworker and the caseworker's supervisor.

Neither works at the department anymore.

This isn't the first time the state has become aware of recordkeeping problems at the DCF.

After reading newspaper accounts, including those in the St. Petersburg Times, of missing and altered records, House members passed a bill this spring that would have made it a misdemeanor to alter such records.

If those alterations resulted in serious harm or death to a child, the infraction would become a third-degree felony. But the bill never passed the Senate.

During the regular legislative session this spring, the Times reported that members of the task force hired to help the state say they received hundreds of files in Lake County that contained no more than sketchy initial abuse reports. They said many files were missing records.

And an internal DCF audit last year indicates that task force officials complained that DCF was endangering children by failing to aggressively investigate its own cases.

Those news accounts, as well as a grand jury report, are cited in the staff analysis that accompanied the bill. And House Speaker Tom Feeney appointed a special committee to review the problems.

That committee met briefly on Thursday but did not discuss specifics. Afterward, some legislators and child advocates left unsatisfied.

"You can't keep moving forward if you keep looking in the rearview mirror," said Jack Levine, president of the Center for Florida's Children.

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Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk