Maryland’s foster care system left children vulnerable to potential abusers due to a faulty computer system, according to a three-year state audit released Tuesday.
The report blasted the department’s failure “to ensure that all individuals known to be guilty of child abuse or neglect, or found responsible for indicated abuse or neglect, were identified as such in a central registry.”
Auditors were looking at the system from 2004 until 2007, focusing on the dire shortcomings of a $68 million computer program implemented in piecemeal fashion starting in 1997.
More than 2,500 foster children of about 10,000 in the state did not have their placements recorded in the new system by November 2007, according to the audit. In a sample of those who were recorded, 16 of 28 children had incorrect information.
“Potentially it could” put kids in danger, said Bruce Myers, Maryland’s top legislative auditor. “If people are doing their jobs and you have the right number of workers and caseloads, you’ll be fine. But this system would provide a way to monitor that.”
However, by the end of 2007, the audit noted a shortage of 243 caseworkers and 89 supervisors throughout the state. There were 1,722 case workers on the job and 304 supervisors.
Alongside concerns for children, the audit lists a string of ongoing record-keeping missteps resulting in millions of state dollars being used to pay for services that could have been covered by the federal government. Children eligible for federal funds were not identified, and training services eligible for federal funding were not turned in to authorities with proper documentation.
Officials for the Social Services Administration, led by Secretary Brenda Donald, say significant improvements have been made in the past year. They also point out that the audit took place largely under different leadership.
The department “recognized the many challenges we faced with our computer system,” said spokeswoman Nancy Lineman.
Lineman said the improvements, which are scheduled to cost $4 million more over the current fiscal year, have brought the percentage of cases entered in the system to 90 percent of the total, as opposed to 38 percent in November 2007.
Still, Myers said the audit was one of his department’s most shocking “because of the nature of the issues and the dollars involved.”
