Establishes civil penalties for knowingly making a false report of suspected child abuse or mistreatment and creates procedures for determining whether such a violation has occurred

BILL NUMBER:S2121

Title of bill

An act to amend the social services law, in relation to false allegations of suspected child abuse and maltreatment

Purpose

This bill establishes a civil penalty against a person who intentionally makes a false report of an alleged occurrence of child abuse or maltreatment.

Summary of provisions

Section 1: amends section 422 of the Social Services Law by adding a new subdivision 15 to allow the Office of Children and Family Services or a local child protective services to seek, and for a hearing officer to impose, a fine, not to exceed $5,000 for a first violation and up to $10,000 for a second and subsequent violations upon a person who knowingly and willfully makes a false report of abuse or maltreatment of a child, or a person who counsels another to make a false report. In addition, this section creates a process for that fine to be imposed.

Section 2: Effective Date.

Justification

A significant portion of reports to the Statewide Central Register are determined to be "unfounded." A major contributing factor to this is intentional false reports to the state central registry. These false reports are thought to often be from persons

* Who make false reports maliciously and with intent to harass, embarrass, or harm another person;

* Who seek a personal benefit, including in some instances a financial benefits the result of a false report;

* Who seek an advantage in a legal proceeding such as a custody, divorce or child abuse or neglect proceeding.

In addition a number of false reports are believed to come from the same person who makes repeated false reports. These events cause resources to needlessly be spent investigating these allegations, reduces the time workers can spend on legitimate reports and unnecessarily harms people who are named in a report including the child, children or vulnerable person who must be interviewed as part of an investigation.

The current level of penalties is not sufficient to create deterrence from false reporting of incidents of abuse and neglect of a child or vulnerable person. The potential imposition of a civil penalty that may be commenced by the office of children and families or by a local child protective service that can be enforced through administrative processes will create a greater deterrent and more effective

enforcement method than is now available in the Section 240.50 of the penal law.

This is one in a series of measures being introduced at the request of the Erie County Executive upon the recommendation of the county's Commissioner of Social Services to improve the provision of child protective services to New York's children and families.

Legislative history

A. 9436 as of 2013/2014

Fiscal implications

To be determined.

Effective date

This act shall take effect immediately.