Directs the office of children and family services to promulgate regulations establishing workload standards for child protective service employees

2 Co-sponsors

• Tony Avella
• Timothy M. Kennedy

BILL NUMBER:S2691

Title of bill

An act to amend the social services law, in relation to directing the office of children and family services to establish workload standards for child protective services workers

Purpose

To establish a standard of no more than fifteen cases per month per full-time child protective services worker.

Summary of provisions

Section one of this bill amends section 20-a of the Social Services Law to provide that such section will not apply to any regulations establishing workload standards promulgated pursuant to section 421 (c) of the Social Services Law.

Section two of this bill amends section 421 of the Social Services Law by adding a new paragraph (c) to create workload standards for child protective services which shall be no more than fifteen active cases per month per full-time child protective services worker.

Section three of this bill amends paragraph (c) of subdivision 1 of section 423 of the Social Services Law to provide that the sufficient staff requirement for child protective services offices will be subject to section (c) of section 421 of the Social Services Law, as amended by section 2 of this bill.

Section four of this bill provides that this act shall take effect on the seven hundred thirtieth day after it shall have become a law.

Justification

It has been shown that smaller caseloads are important to the success of child protective services. New York City's Administration for Children's Services has taken this approach and has substantially lowered their caseload ratios to the benefit of the children. This proposal builds upon a 2006 Office of Children and Family Services study, which was required pursuant to Chapter 53 of the Laws of 2006, on Child Protective Services caseloads.

Last year, the Legislature passed A.9873/S.7524 that would have required local departments of social services to file an annual report including staffing levels and the average caseloads of their child protective services' employees. On December 29, 2014, the Governor issued veto message 577 disapproving this legislation stating that he supports "the sponsors' goal to limit caseloads in CPS in order to ensure the effective investigation of child abuse and maltreatment. However, the reports required by this bill would not provide a useful view of caseloads but would merely add another bureaucratic requirement. The required information would not take into account the many variables that impact employee workloads such as the nature of allegations, the complexity of each case, or the number of children in a household." While veto message 577 states that the Office of Children and Family Services "regularly produces data regarding CPS caseloads" and directs OCFS to "make appropriate CPS caseload data

publicly available on its website," OCFS has yet to make current information available on its website.

Legislative history

2014: S.7523 - 3rd Reading Calendar.

Fiscal implications

Undetermined.

Effective date

This act shall take effect on the seven hundred thirtieth day after it shall have become a law.