Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
Two supervisors in the Alfredo Montes case say they're being fired because of pressure from higher up.
By CURTIS KRUEGER, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published July 16, 2002
LAKELAND -- Two fired state supervisors said Monday they are the scapegoats for shortcomings in Florida's child welfare system that were widely known long before the death this month of 2-year-old Alfredo Montes.
Robert Mistretta and Kathleen Mizell, fired by the Department of Children and Families on Friday, said child welfare workers are poorly trained and overworked. They said in this case and others, DCF workers are held accountable for errors they did not commit.
But Sue Gray, the DCF district administrator for the Lakeland area, said she stands behind her decisions to fire the two supervisors. She said she fired Mistretta because "he did nothing, he did absolutely nothing" to make sure an investigator aggressively checked out a claim that Alfredo's mother had neglected and beaten her child.
Gov. Jeb Bush also defended the firings Monday.
"If a supervisor is derelict in their duties, they will be fired," Bush said. "This is a difficult job. When supervisors and caseworkers are derelict in their duties, it makes it hard for all the good caseworkers and supervisors and investigators to do their jobs under difficult circumstances. There has to be action taken."
In the latest scandal dogging Florida's social services agency, DCF on Friday fired an investigator for falsely claiming she had visited Alfredo, his mother and sister during an abuse investigation earlier this month. The investigator also was criminally charged with falsifying records under a new law passed by the Legislature this spring.
Alfredo's mother, who lives in Winter Haven, had been accused of beating Alfredo while high on drugs.
Police now say she had left him and his 4-year-old sister in a mobile home park with two friends. One of them, Richard Chouquer, 23, is now accused of killing Alfredo for soiling his pants.
Also Friday, the department fired Mistretta and Mizell. Gray said she fired the two because both failed to follow basic procedures to make sure their staff fully investigated whether a mother suspected of drug abuse was adequately caring for her child.
These firings show DCF was reacting not just to the revelation that an employee had falsified records, but also to evidence that the department had conducted at least two sloppy investigations into whether Alfredo was being abused. It was the supervisors' job to make sure their staff fully investigated all claims that Alfredo and his sister were at risk.
But Mistretta said DCF employees all understand that when a child they work with dies, Tallahassee administrators routinely fire one line worker plus a supervisor.
He said Gray as much as admitted this by saying during his firing, "I'm sorry to do this, it's not fair, but it comes from the governor."
Mistretta said DCF administrators in Lakeland did not want to fire him and said, "I am very confident that if the decision would have been handled by District 14, I would still have my job today."
Gray said she was the one who made the decision to fire Mistretta and Mizell, in consultation with DCF Secretary Kathleen Kearney.
At the time he died, believed to be July 1, DCF had investigated Alfredo's mother five times. Two of the cases were still open.
The investigator who was arrested, Erica Jones, handled a July 1 abuse complaint claiming Alfredo's mother had beaten and neglected Alfredo and his 4-year-old sister, Rheyna. She visited the house of the mother, Jeanna Swallows, that day. But under the rules, she should have returned every day until she found the family, or passed on the job to another employee on her day off. Mistretta should have made sure Jones checked every day, Gray said.
In previous investigations, evidence showed that Swallows had a drug problem, but investigators had not asked for a drug screening to see if she should be referred into treatment and DCF supervision. Gray said she fired Mizell for not recognizing those defects in the previous investigations.
Kathy Mizell, a DCF supervisor who was fired, told WTSP-Ch. 10 that the Alfredo Montes case points to a deep problem in DCF. Caseworkers are overworked and overwhelmed, she said.
"It's horrible," Mizell said. "The answer is not firing people. Somebody in Tallahassee has to say, "Okay, we have a problem.' It's not just the supervisors. It's not just the caseworkers. There's a problem."
Mizell said investigators should not get more than 12 new cases a month.
"It's not unusual to have a 50- or 60-case caseload," she said. "There is no way you can do everything you need to do."
-- Information from The Ledger of Lakeland was used in this report.