N.C. Senate Bill 594: Social Service Delivery Reform at Devasting Cost to County Authority and Budgets

The newly introduced Family/ Child Protection and Accountability Act, Senate Bill 594, purports to bring sweeping reform to the North Carolina child welfare system. Citing North Carolina’s dismal performance in both state and federal audits, the bill seeks to reorganize county departments of social services by regionalizing the delivery of services and placing direction and authority over social services delivery in the hands of the State of North Carolina.  Introduced on April 4, 2017, the bill already has its advocates. Most notably, Michelle Hughes of the N.C. Child advocacy organization, claims among other things that North Carolina’s child welfare system is failing and that the proposed legislation will lead to “modernized case management”; provide “real-time data about children in foster care” and reduce social worker caseloads.  

The reality is somewhat different from what the bill’s sponsors and Ms. Hughes portray.

First, it should be noted that regionalization is one of the failed parlor tricks of the North Carolina General assembly, demonstrated most notably by the State’s regionalization of the mental health system in the past decade.  Starting initially in 2001 with the separation of mental health management from mental health service provision, the State later embraced the consolidation of metal health management into regional Local Mental Health Entities (LME’s) through the use of the Medicaid 1915 (b)(c) Waiver Program. The results of this consolidation were devastating to many counties within the State where service provision diminished, the spectrum of services available to mental health clients diminished, and the overall quality of services being provided diminished.

Second, the current legislation, embracing E.F. Schumaker’s “small is beautiful” mantra, regionalizes by consolidating 100 current county based social service agencies into 30 regional agencies. Considering that most social services spending in counties has millions of dollars of impact, taking away this influx of cash from the economies of 2/3 of the counties surely will do much to stunt economic growth at a time when the economy is just starting once again to fill county coffers.

Third, while Senate Bill 594 gives lip service to local service provision and preserving existing judicial districts where legal action is necessary, the bill is sparse when it comes to the details. Exactly how does a regional entity provide localized services to populations who frequently don’t have basic transportation?  This question remains unanswered as does the question of how a regional agency can effectively carry out its necessary child welfare, child support and adult protective services legal functions when its territory takes  in multiple judicial districts.

Most problematic of all is Senate Bill 594’s seeming inability to recognize the root of the problem of social services delivery in North Carolina. As any educator knows, a student’s academic failure cannot necessary be solved by merely blaming the student. Certainly some of the blame does accrue to the student. However, questions must also be asked about the standards used to measure the student’s performance as well as the methodology used by the instructor to teach the student.

Senate Bill 594 dispenses with such inquiries and assumes without argument,that the problem must be with the counties. But isn’t the State of North Carolina somewhat to blame as well? And could it be possible that the federal audit failure was the result of an instrument that was designed to lead to failure?

Such questions must be asked before the legislature rushes headlong to pass a measure which will divest the counties of their statutory authority over social services delivery, and takes away a major source of their income.