[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 118 (Wednesday, September 18, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1599-E1600]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONTINUING CRISIS IN FOSTER CARE
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HON. GEORGE MILLER
of california
in the house of representatives
Wednesday, September 18, 2002
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, most of us favor
federal spending to promote the safety, well-being, and stability of
children in the child welfare system. Yet in too many states, federal
funds are being used to finance dysfunctional child welfare systems,
often operating in violation of federal laws. We cannot continue to
perpetuate a system that fails to protect children or their families or
provide necessary services and safeguards.
In the following article, The Miami Herald reports that 183 employees
of Florida's Department of Children and Families (DCF) had committed
felonies, including child molestation, child abuse, sex crimes and drug
dealing. In the report, a DCF official acknowledges that ``the most
vulnerable people in our community are trusted to people in
circumstances where there is a potential for these kinds of
background.''
In Florida and across the nation, state, county and local agencies
are facing difficulties in recruiting, retaining, training and
supervising child welfare workers. Having poorly trained, overworked,
underpaid, caseworkers leads to massive turnovers, which, in turn,
exacerbates the challenge of accountability in a system responsible for
safety and well being of children.
The child welfare system must be reformed to improve the delivery of
mandated services, the efficient operation of accountability systems,
and successful permanent placements for children. In addition, there
must be immediate and sustained oversight of the child welfare programs
by the Department of Health and Human Services, and by state
governments.
The article follows:
[From the Miami Herald, Sept. 8, 2002]
State Child-Welfare Payroll Includes Employees Who Have Criminal Pasts
(By David Kidwell, Jason Grotto and Tere Figueras)
Florida's embattled child-welfare agency--the Department of
Children & Families--employs at least 183 people who have
been arrested and punished for an array of felonies including
child molestation, child abuse, sex crimes, drug dealing,
even welfare fraud against the agency itself, a Herald
investigation has found.
For instance, the head of the agency's data-security team
in Tallahassee is listed on the state's list of sexual
predators for molesting a 5-year-old boy.
In other cases, the crimes committed by DCF employees are
directly relevant to the positions of trust they now hold.
In Miami, the director of rehabilitative services for a
mental hospital has twice been arrested for cocaine buys.
In Chattahoochee, a man who supervises mental patients was
charged with attempted first-degree murder in 1986 for firing
a shot at his wife and racking a shotgun at her as she
cowered with their son in a closet. He pleaded no contest to
lesser charges.
In Kissimmee, the DCF hired a child-abuse investigator who
two years earlier was convicted of violating a restraining
order issued after she threw a brick through her ex-
boyfriend's living room window and smashed his car windshield
with a tire iron.
In Gainesville, a night Supervisor at a home for the
developmentally disabled was convicted in 1994 in a string of
six burglaries at an apartment complex where her job as a
maid gave her access to a pass key.
In Tampa, a family services counselor was allowed to keep
her job despite charges that she beat up her 68-year-old
mother in the front yard during an argument.
Administrators of the DCF--already beleaguered by criticism
over the agency's handling of cases involving missing
children that led to the resignation of department Secretary
Kathleen Kearney--say they have worked hard to screen
employees.
In most cases, they say, the agency was aware of the
charges and thoroughly reviewed the backgrounds of the
employees to make sure their lives were back on track and
that DCF clients would not be imperiled. ``In a perfect
world, none of our employees would have any kind of criminal
past,'' said Tim Bottcher, a DCF spokesman in Tallahassee.
``But we just know that is unrealistic. In reality, we are no
different that any other large organization.'' He said the
183 employees found by The Herald should be considered in the
context of an enormous agency with 24,000 employees
statewide. ``When it comes to our attitude on employees who
have broken the law, we have considered the offenses and
acted accordingly.''
The DCF, however, had not complied with Herald requests to
provide personnel files to verify many of the agency's
actions in these cases. DCF administrators acknowledged that
in some cases the agency did not know about the criminal
pasts of its employees.
This week, three submitted their resignations after Herald
inquiries. They include the Miami rehabilitative services
director, a human-services worker at Florida State Hospital
in Chattahoochee who pleaded no contest to selling cocaine in
1994, and a human-services analyst in Miami caught in an
insurance-fraud scheme in 1997.
DIDN'T DISCLOSE
DCF administrators said each of them failed to disclose
their arrests to the DCF as required by the agency.
Among the 183 employees charged were three who have been
punished for child abuse, 22 for grand theft, seven for
aggravated battery, two for DUI manslaughter, three for
dealing drugs, 10 for aggravated assault with a weapon and
nine for welfare fraud.
The Herald also found one man, a $61,446-per-year
supervisor in the DCF's data-processing center in
Tallahassee, on Florida's registry of sexual predators.
Carl Avery Anderson, 43, was hired in 1988 while he was
still on house arrest for molesting a 5-year old boy in his
care. According to police records, he admitted to the charges
and pleaded no contest to lewd and lascivious assault on a
child in 1987. The charges cost Anderson his data job at the
Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Anderson now insists
he is innocent and that police tricked him into a confession.
``I have never been in trouble in my life,'' he told The
Herald. ``If I had tried to fight that . . . maybe I could
have gotten off. I pleaded because I was ignorant. People who
know me know I didn't do this.''
DATA SECURITY
He is now head of the DCF's data-security team, where he
supervises three others and is responsible for making sure
the agency's enormous stockpile of sensitive and private
information remains that way.
``He has been an excellent employee who has been promoted
during his career here,'' Bottcher said. ``It would be a
concern of ours
[[Page E1600]]
if he had direct contact with clients, but we don't feel his
job is relevant to the crimes.
``He does have security clearance that would allow him to
access client information,'' Bottcher said. ``We did not
consider him to be a risk.''
Some of the names on The Herald's list entered pretrial
diversion programs in which prosecutors agreed to drop the
cases after the charges were filed and the people completed a
program of probation, counseling or specialized classes.
Among them: Bart Harrell, 40, who was hired as a patient-
activities coordinator at the Chattahoochee mental hospital
less than seven months after he was charged in 1989 with
sexual battery on a person younger than 18 in Alabama,
according to records and interviews.
NOT REQUIRED
Employees were not required to disclose arrests to the DCF
before a policy change in 1994, said Walt Cook, the DCF's
assistant director of human resources.
Harrell declined to speak about the case but said: ``Those
records are supposed to be sealed and expunged. You are about
to ruin my life again over something that didn't happen 13
years ago.''
Among others who were hired or kept their jobs after
agreeing to pretrial intervention: Sabrina Barnes, 32, a
child-protective investigator in Kissimmee. In 1996, police
reports say, she smashed an ex-boyfriend's windshield and
threw a brick through his window. Barnes was later convicted
of violating a domestic violence injunction after another
confrontation with the same man.
Susan Arnick Alston, 55, a family services counselor in
Tampa. According to police, she beat up her 68-year-old
mother in the front yard in 1993.
In both cases, DCF administrators say they were aware of
the charges. ``People make mistakes in their lives, and
there's such a thing as rehabilitation,'' said Yvonne Vassel,
a DCF spokeswoman in Barnes' district. ``The process was
followed, and she was truthful with her disclosures to the
state.'' Alston, who licenses foster homes, was put on
administrative duties until the completion of her court case.
``Had she pleaded guilty or no contest, she Would have been
disqualified from her employment,'' said Shauna Donovan,
spokeswoman for the agency's Tampa district. ``But since the
charges were dismissed, she was allowed to return to her
normal duties.''
In Miami, two employees resigned Friday amid The Herald
investigation.
Calvin Eugene Dandy, 54, the $45,000-per-year Miami
director of rehabilitative services at the South Florida
Evaluation and Treatment Center. He resigned after being
confronted by district administrators about a 1999 arrest for
buying cocaine that he failed to disclose.
All employees are required to disclose any arrests
immediately, and employees in sensitive ``caretaker''
positions--those who spend more than 15 hours a week in
direct contact with DCF clients--are reassigned until the
criminal case is closed.
If employees in caretaker positions are convicted or plead
no contest to most felonies and first-degree misdemeanors,
they will be fired unless they apply for and are granted an
exemption.
Lucian Bledsoe, the agency's human resources director in
Miami, said Dandy failed to disclose his 1999 arrest, which
came 14 months after the agency granted him an exemption for
a similar charge from 1993. He was sentenced to probation in
1993. In 1999, the charges were dropped because lab reports
on the drugs did not come back in time for a crucial court
date, according to Miami-Dade state attorney's office
records.
Dandy did not return repeated messages left at his home and
office.
``The bottom line is he knew his responsibility to disclose
that arrest, and he didn't do it,'' Bledsoe said.
Also resigning Friday: Mercedes Medina, 52, a $28,000-a-
year human-services analyst in Miami, failed to disclose a
1998 arrest for insurance fraud. She pleaded no contest to a
string of staged auto accidents, court records show. ``I was
trying to help some people out,'' Medina told The Herald.
``But it was so stupid. The stupidest thing I have ever done
in my whole life.'' Medina acknowledged she never told the
DCF about the insurance-fraud allegations or 1997 arrests for
drunken driving. She said she didn't think it was required.
The Herald found two DCF employees in caretaker positions
who have been charged and punished for child abuse, including
Jennie Arnett Barkley, now 54, another supervisor who
oversees mental patients at Chattahoochee, She pleaded no
contest and served two years' probation on 1986 charges of
grand theft and child abuse after she took her 15-year-old
daughter on a shoplifting spree at Gayfer's, court records
show. Barkley declined to be interviewed.
The Herald also found nine current employees who were
charged and punished for defrauding the agency itself out of
welfare money, including one woman who was hired in June
while still on probation for the charge.
RECENT HIRE
Another recent DCF hire was 27-year-old Amy Curtis, who in
May became a night supervisor at Tocachale in Gainesville, an
institution of group homes for the developmentally disabled.
Curtis was convicted in 1994 in a series of six burglaries at
an apartment complex where her job as a maid gave her a pass
key, court records show. She had twice been denied the job
because of her past, but in May the agency relented, Tom
Barnes, the DCF's district spokesman, said ``there was a
feeling she had moved from blaming her crimes on her
circumstances. She was now taking responsibility.'' Barnes
said such demanding jobs that pay so little sometimes force
the agency to ``strike a balance.''
``We are very aware that the most vulnerable people in our
community are trusted to people in circumstances where there
is a potential for these kinds of backgrounds,'' he said.
It's a constant battle to keep these positions filled.''
Another institution with a concentration of employees with
past criminal charges is the mental hospital at
Chattahoochee.
The Herald found 46 hospital employees with felony charges
in their backgrounds including aggravated battery, robbery,
fraud, burglary, arson and trafficking in stolen property.
LONGTIME WORKER
Among them is Frank Dickens, 55, who for 36 years has
supervised mental patients at the facility. In 1986, Dickens
was charged with attempted first-degree murder and battery
after his wife called police and told them he fired a shot at
her head in a drunken rage. According to police reports, he
shot at her with a pistol in the kitchen after she tried to
stop him from whipping their son with a belt. Dickens pleaded
no contest to shooting within a building and aggravated
assault. He served 90 days in Gadsden County Jail and was
placed on probation for five years. But he was not convicted
because a judge agreed to withhold an adjudication of guilt.
Dickens told The Herald the gun went off accidentally and
that his wife fabricated most of her allegations. ``Your wife
can tell on you tomorrow, and the police could pick you up
for it,'' he said.
Dickens was granted an exemption as a caretaker employee in
1997, spokesman Bottcher said, in large part because of his
long career of service at Chattahoochee.
Dickens said his crimes are minor compared with what he has
seen inside the walls of the mental hospital in his 36 years
as an employee there.
``We've had women killed in that place, strangled. We've
had people shot,'' Dickens said. ``I've been beat up,
threatened at knife point. It's a disaster up there, and
You're asking me whether I should be working there?''
``Some of these people have committed the worst crimes you
can imagine,'' Dickens said. ``And they're worse than I am,
because they've been convicted.''
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