A former Pierce County Housing Authority employee stole nearly $7 million from the agency in the largest-ever fraud ever recorded for a local government in Washington state, an investigation has confirmed. (KOMO News)
TACOMA, Wash. – A former Pierce County Housing Authority employee stole nearly $7 million from the agency in the largest-ever fraud ever recorded for a local government in Washington state, an investigation has confirmed.
The investigation by the state Auditor's Office found that the authority’s former finance director, Cova Campbell, used a variety of schemes to misappropriate $6,948,277 in funds since 2016, officials said Monday. The Auditor's Office detected the thefts during a routine financial audit, when auditors questioned wire transfers of large sums of money out of state.
The results of the investigation are being forwarded to the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the FBI, which is conducting a criminal investigation into the case.
A former Pierce County Housing Authority employee stole nearly $7 million from the agency in the largest-ever fraud ever recorded for a local government in Washington state, an investigation has confirmed. (KOMO News)
The Pierce County Housing Authority, which provides affordable housing for low-income families, ended the finance director’s employment in August after the fraud scheme was discovered.
"This was a shameful breach of the public trust that harms the very people who need affordable housing options the most," said State Auditor Pat McCarthy.
The auditor's investigation also discovered how the thefts were carried out, and the Housing Authority has now implemented new, stricter controls to prevent it from happening again, said Housing Authority Chair Sally Porter Smith.
According to investigators, the former finance director first began making fraudulent purchases on the housing authority’s credit cards in March 2016.
In July 2016, she made the first of 78 transactions that disguised transfers to her own account as batched payments to legitimate vendors. In this scheme, she substituted her own bank account number for the vendors’ account numbers, according to the Auditor's Office.
In 2018, she transferred housing authority funds to a bank in Oklahoma, where she had purchased property the same month. In 2019, she began directly wiring housing authority funds into her personal Washington bank account, the investigation found.
The former finance director admitted to investigators that she was responsible for the misappropriations - but claimed she had been directed by the housing authority’s executive director to misappropriate the funds and to provide him with a share in cash. The investigators found no evidence to support that assertion.
State Auditor Pat McCarthy announces the result of the investigation into the $7 million fraud scheme{p}{/p}
The investigation also revealed concerted efforts by the former finance director to circumvent accountability and detection.
Details, including a breakdown of the amount obtained through each scheme, can be found in the full fraud investigation report, which can be found here.
We have ourselves another one of those #coloredrevolutions, smiling cheek to cheek.
Precious just inherited a hot mess, which he was a will participant, but do not let him know that!
Wilton Gregory is now going down in history for being the first black Archbishop of Washington, taking over the responsibilities of the trafficking tiny humans global industry, and the ongoing mess of the "Nasty Ones", his former boss.
But, do not let that stop Wilton from happy moment, for it shall not last very long.
I cannot wait for his Instagram and Twitter Selfies.
Washington D.C., Mar 28, 2019 / 01:29 pm (CNA).- Pope Francis is expected to appoint Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta to serve as the next Archbishop of Washington, multiple sources have independently reported to CNA. Gregory would become the seventh Archbishop of Washington, succeeding Cardinal Donald Wuerl.
A formal announcement could come as early as next week, sources say, though it has not yet been confirmed that the archbishop has accepted the appointment. Sources in Rome and the United States told CNA that Gregory was informed of the appointment earlier this week.
Technically, there has been no Archbishop of Washington since Cardinal Wuerl’s resignation was accepted in October 2018, but Wuerl himself has served as interim leader of the archdiocese since that time.
The identity of Wuerl’s successor has been the subject of intense speculation over the last five months, and several prominent members of the American hierarchy were reportedly considered for the role.
One source told CNA that because Washington has been an epicenter of the Church’s sexual abuse crisis, the background of potential candidates has been subject to more exacting scrutiny than is typical for episcopal appointments.
For that reason, the source emphasized, the likely appointment of Gregory could still be subject to change, even close to the announcement, if the Holy See or Gregory himself had reason to be concerned about his ability to address the problems relating to sexual abuse and misconduct that have plagued the Washington archdiocese.
“They absolutely want to get this one right,” the source told CNA.
While Gregory, 71, is generally well-regarded among U.S. bishops as an administrator, one bishop told CNA that some expected his age might discourage him from accepting the appointment.
In Washington, Gregory would likely be expected to provide a period of steady leadership in Washington for the near term, while leaving open the possibility he could carry on past the normal retirement age for bishops of 75.
The Archbishop of Washington is generally viewed as one of the most influential Churchmen in the United States; the five most recent archbishops were all created cardinals - including the now-laicized Theodore McCarrick. The Archbishop of Washington is generally expected to walk a narrow line: articulating the Church’s teaching in the middle of the national political conversation, without appearing to be partisan.
Gregory’s appointment to the archdiocese would follow months of scandal in the Church in the United States, and his selection would likely have been made, at least in part, in recognition of his experience in dealing with the fallout of the last major abuse crisis in the Church.
Serving a term as president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops from 2001 to 2004, Gregory was responsible for helping to lead the American hierarchy through the fallout of the Church’s 2002 sexual abuse scandals. He oversaw the formation and implementation of the “Dallas Charter” and USCCB’s “Essential Norms” in 2002.
As a past USCCB president, Gregory is part of a working group - together with Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Archbishop Joseph Kurtz - charged by the U.S. bishops with examining and developing proposed reforms for enhancing episcopal accountability.
As the first African-American Archbishop of Washington, Gregory’s appointment would also be viewed as a historic milestone for the Church in the United States, especially since the archbishop is likely to be created the first African-American cardinal.
Within the Archdiocese of Washington itself, Gregory’s appointment would likely bring a welcome end to months of speculation.
While Washington’s near 700,000 Catholics are a considerably smaller flock than the 1.2 million Gregory has led in Atlanta, the capital archdiocese is home to a broad diversity of communities, which include the deeply enculturated African-American parishes in the southeast of the city, the affluent parishes of northern parts of the city, large communities of Latin American immigrants, thousands of university students, and the rural communities of southern Maryland.
A Chicago native, Gregory converted to Catholicism as a student in a Chicago Catholic grade school. In 1971, he was ordained a priest in Chicago by Cardinal John Cody. Consecrated bishop at age 36, Gregory served as an auxiliary bishop in his home diocese under Cardinal Joseph Bernardin from 1983 until 1994.
The archbishop is known to have preserved close ties with his home city, and with archdiocesan leadership in Chicago.
In 1994 Gregory became the Bishop of Belleville, Illinois, where he remained for ten years before moving to Atlanta in 2004. Since his arrival in Atlanta, Gregory has ordained 64 men to the priesthood and overseen the welcoming of more than 16,000 people as converts into the Catholic Church.
Calls requesting comment from the Archdiocese of Washington went unreturned. The Archdiocese of Atlanta did not respond to questions as of press time.
I bet the Corporate Shape Shifters over there at Title Source/Amrock/Quicken Loans/Bedrock/Jack Entertainment whatever the TITLE INSURANCE COMPANY flavor of the week it is for Dan Gilbert is most certainly glad that Detroit was not identified in these new Geographic Targeting Orders (GTO), but, then again, Detroit was the original model.
GEOGRAPHIC TARGETING ORDER
The Director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) hereby issues a
Geographic Targeting Order (“Order”) requiring TITLE INSURANCE COMPANY to collect
and report information about the persons involved in certain residential real estate transactions,
as further described in this Order.
Now, this is how you target populations.
Purchase Threshold Lowered to $300,000 and Virtual Currencies Included
WASHINGTON—The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) today announced the issuance of revised Geographic Targeting Orders (GTOs) that require U.S. title insurance companies to identify the natural persons behind shell companies used in all-cash purchases of residential real estate. The purchase amount threshold, which previously varied by city, is now set at $300,000 for each covered metropolitan area. FinCEN is also requiring that covered purchases using virtual currencies be reported.
Previous GTOs provided valuable data on the purchase of residential real estate by persons implicated, or allegedly involved, in various illicit enterprises including foreign corruption, organized crime, fraud, narcotics trafficking, and other violations. Reissuing the GTOs will further assist in tracking illicit funds and other criminal or illicit activity, as well as inform FinCEN’s future regulatory efforts in this sector.
Today’s GTOs cover certain counties within the following major U.S. metropolitan areas: Boston; Chicago; Dallas-Fort Worth; Honolulu; Las Vegas; Los Angeles; Miami; New York City; San Antonio; San Diego; San Francisco; and Seattle.
FinCEN appreciates the continued assistance and cooperation of the title insurance companies and the American Land Title Association in protecting the real estate markets from abuse by illicit actors.
Any questions about the Orders should be directed to the FinCEN Resource Center at FRC@FinCEN.gov
Frequently asked questions regarding these GTOs are available here.
This privatized fraud scheme of child welfare was brought to you by D.C. FBI and the D.C. Inspector General.
And people wonder why children are not learning.
Defendant’s Crimes Cost Government More Than $300,000
WASHINGTON – Vashawn Strader, 40, of Washington, D.C., was sentenced today to 18 months in prison for bribing an employee of the District of Columbia Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) to get favorable action on government contracts.
The announcement was made by U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu, Nancy McNamara, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, and District of Columbia Inspector General Daniel W. Lucas.
Strader pled guilty in July 2017, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery. Following his prison term, he will be placed on three years of supervised release. During that time, he must perform 100 hours of community service. He also will be required to pay $308,311 in restitution to OSSE and an identical amount in a forfeiture money judgment.
Strader’s co-conspirator, government employee Shauntell Harley, was sentenced in July 2018 to 56 months in prison. She pled guilty to carrying out two schemes, one with Strader and one with someone else, that caused the D.C. government to pay more than $480,000 on fraudulent invoices. Harley, 48, of Washington, D.C., must pay $488,311 in restitution to OSSE and a forfeiture money judgment in the amount of $100,400.
OSSE is an agency of the District of Columbia government. Harley was a management analyst for fiscal policy and grant management in OSSE’s Division of Special Education. From 2009 through 2014, her responsibilities included issuing requests for services through the government’s procurement process and then reviewing invoices from those who supposedly provided the services.
Strader was the sole owner of a company that provided tutoring and mentoring services to public school students in the District of Columbia and elsewhere. In addition, he co-owned a company that owned and managed real estate in the District of Columbia.
According to the government’s evidence, beginning in or about June of 2012, Strader and Harley agreed that Harley would receive money and other things of value in exchange for favorable official action for Strader’s companies. They agreed that Strader would create fraudulent invoices purporting to reflect work that his companies did not actually perform. This work purportedly included early intervention services for infants and toddlers with disabilities and developmental delays and professional development training.
Harley used her official position at OSSE to provide Strader with non-public information about OSSE contracts, assist him in creating fraudulent invoices, and submit these fraudulent invoices and other documents as necessary in order to cause OSSE to make the payments for services the companies never performed. In total, this led to $308,311 in payments in 2012 and 2013 to the two companies for services that never were provided. In return for her actions, Harley personally obtained a total of $43,900 in proceeds traceable to the scheme.
In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Liu, Assistant Director in Charge McNamara, and Inspector General Lucas commended the work of those who investigated the case from the FBI’s Washington Field Office and Office of the Inspector General of the District of Columbia. They acknowledged the efforts of those who worked on the case from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Swanton, who assisted with forfeiture issues, and Paralegal Specialists Joshua Fein and Kristy Penny. Finally, they expressed appreciation for the work of Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter C. Lallas, who is investigating and prosecuting the matter.
I know what they did in Washington State, because I was working with Senator Pam Roach to stop the snatching of children into foster care on the grounds of "failure to provide for the necessary needs of the child" or rather, hailing from "The Poors" (always said with clinched teeth).
But one day, came the Savior, the law firm better recognized as "Legal Geniuses" (trademark pending) called Perkins Coie, to defend the States from having to change their child welfare fraud schemes.
Perkins Coie even, at one time, joined forces with Children's Rights, the same Children's Rights that sued multiple states and not one penny went to the children or the families of children who were legally kidnapped, raped, beaten, tortured and drugged as lab rats in foster care, or to those who survived and were adopted out to be "re-homed" (the fancy term for child trafficking), or those were ran away from foster care to save themselves from being raped, beaten, tortured and drugged as lab rats, or to those who aged out to live a life on the streets being victim to human trafficking networks, or even to the memories or families of the kids who were murdered or committed suicide in foster care.
I would be completely disappointed if the "Legal Geniuses" (trademark pending) did anything less than to engage in profiteering from public dollars intended for children as they are the law firm of Hillary Clinton, et al., the queen mother of the modern architecture of child trafficking, through the Adoption and Safe Families Act.
Now comes a new opportunity to generate profit from the chattel of "The Poors" (always said with clinched teeth).
The "Legal Geniuses" (trademark pending) found the untapped market of legal billing to expedite the adoption process of selling tiny humans by billing, more than likely, Medicaid, or rather Medicaid fraud in child welfare, by representing foster families in concurrent planning (code for adoption) as they have deeply embedded themselves in the entire industry of child welfare.
The "Legal Geniuses" (trademark pending) seem to have embedded themselves all up in the child welfare industry, from CASA to DACA, education, and even child trafficking, but I digress and shall address this in another post as I begin to unveil another reason why #perkinscoiesucks, and it is strictly personal.
Not only were the deaths of children in care not being reported, lawsuits ensued against the state by parents, foster parents, and state contracted agencies.
Predictive modeling of human databases for tiny human
commoditiess to"reach their fullest potential",
in the "best interest of the child"
for a profitable return.
Now, the State of Indiana is brining in "private consultants" to continue privatizing child welfare, in the wake of new work mandated Medicaid policies, which will force more children into state care, billable to Medicaid. The program is called "Gateway to Work" which creates a new layer of programs to bill to Medicaid., including placement of children in another layer of programs to bill Medicaid. This program will be constructed from a collection of individual data, warehoused in a privatized database, modeled to predict one's outcome in life. This is the next wave of human trafficking through privatization.
The contract Holcomb’s office signed with Child Welfare Policy and Practice Group runs from Jan. 2-June 21, 2018. Cost of the work will be capped at $146,630.
In a six-page initial progress report, the consultant sketched its plan for reviewing DCS. The work will include interviewing stakeholders such as children and families, foster parents, judges, law enforcement and caseworkers; examining outcomes and internal management data to assess how children are being served; and reviewing policies and case files.
Also, the consultant will shadow family case managers and supervisors in Allen, Clark, Lake, Marion and Vanderburgh counties.
The consultant has begun interviewing personnel at DCS, including the incoming director, Terry Stigdon. Thus far the consultant has little to report, although officials said Thursday they found the state needs a better system for tracking cases of child abuse and neglect.
The number of children placed in foster care because their drug-addict parents can’t care for them has surged across the country. But the problem is particularly acute in a handful of states including Indiana.
TAMPA — If Florida's overburdened child welfare system has an epicenter, it's Hillsborough County.
An average of 3,600 children were in foster care in the county during 2016, the most in Florida. Hillsborough also has among the highest number of child abuse investigations and removal rates.
BATON ROUGE - Auditors examining the Department of Children and Family Services’ oversight of its Foster Care Program found that the Department struggles with high caseloads and staff turnover, which affects employees’ ability to ensure the safety and well-being of children in foster care, the Legislative Auditor said in a report released today. In addition, auditors found that the Department did not ensure required background checks were performed for prospective foster care providers and that some foster care providers had previous valid cases of abuse or neglect.
Australia - Priests who fail to tell police about suspected child sexual abuse should face criminal charges, even when they learn of abuse during a confidential religious confession, Australia's most powerful investigative authority recommended on Monday.
Oklahoma - A thief wiped out a warehouse full of donations for foster children. Luggage With Love, a nonprofit, had just put in a warehouse in Pottawatomie County to serve even more kids.
NEWPORT, RI—A story about abuse and exploitation of children inside Rhode Island group homes included a recent incident at a home for girls on Girard Avenue. According to the Providence Journal, an employee allegedly enticed two 15-year-old girls to go outside and fight. When they did, a female arrived and assaulted them, as the employee had pre-arranged. He since has quit his job with Child and Family Services. The girls suffered minor injuries, and police are investigating, the Journal said.
SACRAMENTO — State officials have ordered Sacramento County to shut down its foster care intake office by the end of next month, calling for an end to an illegal operation where abused and neglected children are poorly supervised, sleep on the floor, and are often preyed upon by human traffickers.
RACINE — The grandmother of the 3-year-old Racine boy shot to death last month is pleading with the county to return his two young brothers to her after removing them from her home last week.
Centralia’s Kiwanis Vocational Home, open from 1979 to 1994, was intended to be a safe place for wayward boys, a state-licensed foster home where 11- to 17-year-olds could get an education and job skills in a “family atmosphere,” according to a 1986 Chronicle article.
NSW - A foster carer admitted pulling an eight-year-old boy's hair, tying his hands with a skipping rope, then strapping him to a pole while he was "squealing like a pig".
Washington Police Climbing in the window to save the baby from the parents without warrant or cause
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Allow me to present to you, another live, Child Protective Services legal kidnapping of a child, this time from the arms of the mother to kick off National Foster Care Month.
Of course, there were no warrants nor exigent circumstances.
That is correct.
May is the month to launch the next phase in product acquisition for the multi-billion dollar industry of child trafficking child welfare.
It is rare when I find someone who is able to engage in a fact-based discussion dealing with the administrative structure and business model of child welfare, so when I do, I stop to see if I am able to disprove their position.
Mind you, he could have stopped midway in his segment and conserved his political partisanship, but there was a theme which rang through his presentation, and it was quite simple. Fraud.
This individual is from the State of Washington and sets forth his argument that the child welfare industry was designed to be corrupt based on the fact that it is run by private corporations, the same as federal prisons, therefore, there are no civil rights as corporations have immunity.
He is absolutely correct, but now there is legislation on the state level to support his position statement.
Increasingly, successful companies in the 21 century are those that not only sell and deliver a service or a product, but also contribute to society … organizations with a conscience that goes beyond the bottom line.This ‘do good’ principle should evolve out of a corporate credo that encompasses commercial strategies that maximize improvements in human and environmental well-being, as well as profits for shareholders.And, it is now becoming obvious that this altruistic approach does in fact positively contribute to P&L figures, engaging consumers with a feel good factor that builds brand loyalty and cements a relationship beyond the price/value equation.
As a recent global study involving 8,000 consumers in 16 countries carried out on behalf of PR group Edelman revealed, ‘social purpose’ as a purchase trigger has risen 26 per cent since 2008.
It markets the opportunity of social impact investments whereby generating a profit for its clients through child welfare programs, under the guise of religious salvation, to justify the trafficking of children of the poor.
Child welfare is being formatted to adopt the banking industry model, replete with fees, penalties and interest, devoid of regulation, reminiscent of the peculiar institution.
They want to get their hands on the Social Security Trust Fund, badly, for investment purposes, of course.
This is why there is a push for deregulation of the private sector because any injustices would have to be litigated in a court of law and everyone knows that the poor are not afforded equal justice (pun intended).
No money, no justice.
Then, let's take this a step further.
If the child welfare industry is privatized and one wishes to address the fact that the child placing agency keeps internal policy on generating false evidence to remove a child from a family, keep it in the system, assign unnecessary services and medication, while fast tracking to adoption, this means that, not only is there profit being generated for its investors, but it is also a challenge to its business model which may be a violation of its trade secrets, or rather intellectual property.
Without permission, or fair use standards, intellectual property cannot be used.
This is another reason why child welfare is exempt and excluded from FOIA and the legal proceedings are closed.
He brings up an entirely plausible reason why "The Elected Ones" refuse to stand up and speak out about the fraud in child welfare as he alleges they are part of the corporate structure, but I am going to simplify this and just say politicians tend not to "shat where they make their bread."
This is why there are no civil rights in child welfare. There is no money in it.
The child welfare industry funds political campaigns, and that includes the marketing campaigns to generate a profitable return in the best interests of the child, ya know, to grow up to its fullest potential....to maximize corporate revenues.
This is an interesting case coming out of Washington.
"I was just doing what I
was hired to do."
In a nutshell, the question before the Court of Appeals is whether a state contracted agency, which knew its social workers were generating false reports to the courts, recommending extended lengths of stay in foster care and/or termination of parental rights in child welfare cases, mainly due to poverty, is a grant, wait, get this, "constitutional guarantee" of immunity.
Seriously.
See, under the good ol' 11th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, States are granted soverign immunity and the only way to strip immunity is to demonstrate a breach of good faith, a malafide scienter.
So, the arguments are going the route of the principal-agent way, saying that they were just lil ol' state actors, just doing their jobs of maximizing revenue for the state.
In short, the rule states that you can challenge the decision of the Superintendent to grant consent or withhold consent to adoption, not on the grounds if the decision is right or wrong (whether he lied or was just incompetent, for which I support the latter), but if the decision was arbitrary and capricious, meaning, one must prove the decision was "whimsical".
Seriously.
"Can social workers lie in court to take away children and have immunity.? This is a clip from the 9th Federal Court district...Washington State social worker standards will be guided by the outcome of this decision. This is a nail biter." said Kathlee Arthur
For me, this case just got a bit more interesting under the recent veto override of JASTA which, in essence, stripped sovereign immunity.
Will JASTA have more fallout implications by opening doors for the people to sue The States in child welfare actions such as human trafficking and/or fraudulent termination of parental rights?
When a kid is Legally Kidnapped, it is considered, to the entire family, an act of terror.
If you rarely, even take the time to read what I present, I strongly encourage everyone to read, share, then open discussions because there is so much more to the cost of children than could ever be imagined.
Washington State has such a high payout of child welfare lawsuits strictly because there are bold attorneys who are not afraid to brandish the facts, in a court of law, of what happens to a child in foster care.
In most states, particularly Michigan, the legal profession has an unspoken code of being "blacklisted" if an attorney goes up against the state in a matter of child welfare. Then there is that pesky matter of one being able to afford an attorney to represent their child, or even themselves as the parent.
The stigma of being involved with Child Protective Services is so deeply embedded in social culture that it makes sense for everyone to remain silent, even the children who are, for whatever reason (i.e. unnecessarily, involuntarily, poverty) so that no political leader will directly touch this "tar baby" a ten-foot pole.
I must give credit to to Congresswoman Karen Bass and her founding of the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth but it is a dearth, if any, activity in addressing the structural issues of the entire foster care system, mainly the billing and civil rights.
Political candidates of both sides of the aisle only have joined the aforementioned congressional caucus for D.C. political posturing, and not even for their constituents. I can attest, personally, first hand knowledge, that Congressional Chiefs of Staff will ignore and omit anything dealing with the child welfare system from the Offices.
(I would name names, but I believe it will be much more enjoyable to sit back and watch certain Chiefs of Staff to be escorted off the Hill.)
Why? Because they consider this to be a state issue and have never taken the time to even investigate as child welfare is a closed, secretively administered system.
State political leaders will vehemently exclude anything about child welfare from their rhetoric as it comes across as defending bad parents and an hindrance in helping the "poor, abused kids".
Child welfare is the last frontier of civil rights. Stated in this article, reiterated by my previous scribings, children have no civil rights because they do not pay taxes and cannot vote.
Cheryl Schaefer, 28, and three siblings suffered years of abuse in a foster home under DSHS supervision in northeastern Washington. She was angered to learn from a reporter there was no apparent record of discipline for...
Over the past eight years, the state Department of Social and Health Services’ child-welfare division has been hit with scores of lawsuits, paying $141.4 million for failing to protect children under its care.
The state of Washington’s largest department is tasked with caring for the state’s most vulnerable residents — abused children, foster kids, mentally handicapped adults. But time and again, it has failed.
Over the past eight years, the Washington state Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) has been hit with scores of lawsuits, ultimately paying $166.4 million for personal-injury claims. Many of the most severely injured were children who were tortured, starved or raped. Some died.
DSHS employees behind these failures rarely are punished, The Seattle Times has found.
From those scores of lawsuits, the newspaper selected one dozen of the high-cost, child-welfare cases for which records were readily accessible. Many of these cases made headlines and resulted in verdicts or settlements ranging from $750,000 to $11 million, some $75 million in all.
Using court records, public records and interviews, the newspaper identified 48 DSHS staffers involved in the failures in these 12 cases.
None of the 48 was fired or suspended. None was demoted or lost pay.
That is according to DSHS, which ran the 48 names through its human-resources databases at the newspaper’s request. (The database only shows records that affect compensation.)
Whether any of the 48 staffers were given lesser forms of discipline, such as reprimand letters, is unclear. DSHS in May said it would takes several months to provide answers. (Recently, the agency said one staffer had been given a letter of reprimand. It hasn’t completed its research.)
Slightly less than half the 48 still work for DSHS; some have retired.
The review of the 12 cases — as well as several dozen interviews with present and former DSHS employees, state employee-union officials, personal-injury lawyers, children’s advocates and others — turned up some common failings: overlooked complaints of abuse; delayed or inept investigations; placement of children in unsafe homes.
DSHS’ lack of focus on personal accountability is a significant problem, said Tim Tesh, a personal-injury lawyer who has sued DSHS many times. Policymakers can suggest reforms, he said, but “often, it’s that the worker didn’t follow procedures that are already in place. What good does reform do you when the worker just doesn’t follow them?”
DSHS said paying a victim does not mean an employee made a mistake.
“I don’t think anyone in the field can credibly deny that there’s a scary connection between overburdened workers and risk of harm to kids.” - Ira Lustbader, litigation director of Children’s Rights"
Jennifer Strus since 2013 has been head of the Children’s Administration, the division responsible for payouts of $141.4 million. She would not comment on how her predecessors handled employees who may have made mistakes years earlier.
Any failures must be well-documented before the agency can take action, she noted. DSHS in recent years has improved training and how it tracks complaints of abuse and also reviews the performance of employees implicated in claims against the agency.
Being a social worker is the “toughest job in state government,” Strus said. A combination of large caseloads, employee turnover and budget cuts makes it “pretty hard to do great work,” she said.
Cheryl Schaefer, 28, isn’t comforted by these words. She and three siblings suffered years of abuse in a foster home under DSHS supervision in northeastern Washington. Up until 2001, court records show, they were beaten, forced to overeat, throw up and eat their own vomit, and suffered sexual abuse.
According to court records, Schaefer and her siblings said the caseworker repeatedly ignored their cries for help.
A 2012 lawsuit, filed by Tesh against DSHS, was settled for $5.3 million. To Schaefer, money does not equal justice.
Paying for mistakes
DSHS paid out $166.4 million over eight years for injury claims. The largest cases involved the Children’s Administration, its child-welfare division.
Sources: Washington Department of Social and Health Services; Washington Department of Enterprise Services(Reporting by Will Drabold / The Seattle Times; Graphic by Mark Nowlin / The Seattle Times)
have tagged the agency for years. In 1998, lawyers for 13 foster kids filed a class-action lawsuit against the state, saying foster children were being harmed across the board by inadequate care. The state Supreme Court, in the landmark 2003 Braam decision (named after one of the plaintiffs), upheld a lower court and put Washington’s child-welfare system under judicial oversight.
The Braam case led to several improvements, including sharply cutting back on children bouncing from one foster home to another. The court oversight continues, in part because a key court-ordered mandate remains unfulfilled: foster-child caseloads of 18 or fewer for 90 percent of social workers.
Besides the court, state lawmakers recently required DSHS to be more accountable for mistakes.
DSHS was required to do automatic reviews of botched child-welfare cases only when someone died in state care, a “fatality review.”
As of July 24, under “Aiden’s Law,” DSHS must review worker actions if a child experiences a “near fatality” within one year of a previous incident of abuse.
State Sen. Steve O’Ban, R-University Place, who sponsored the legislation, called it an improvement. That lawmakers had to force DSHS to review such cases “speaks volumes,” he said.
Most of the multimillion-dollar settlements come from the DSHS Children’s Administration division. There more than 1,800 social workers oversee nearly 10,000 children in foster care and last year looked into 90,000 reports of child neglect or abuse. Turnover is high — about one in six staffers leaves each year. Starting pay can be as low as $32,688.
Joyce Murphy, a social worker in Vancouver who’s worked for a decade at the agency, said she has failed to see children once a month, as required by DSHS policy. She blames it on her caseload, which she says over the past four years has averaged about 25 children — well above the national standard of 15 and the DSHS average of 19.
"When we are some 30 percent above a reasonable caseload, that can be like sending the Seahawks to play the Super Bowl with two-thirds of a team, then firing them when they lose.” - Kevin Quigley, DSHS Secretary"
“I can’t do my job,” she said. She worries each night that one of her clients will die on her watch.
No one died in the case of two young Snohomish County boys, ages three and six, who were being starved and beat by their father and his girlfriend in 2006, but it does illuminate the tragic results when workers utterly fail to do their jobs. The case is one of many that reveals the personal consequences for such failures can be slight.
Between May and July 2006, a neighbor filed four complaints with DSHS, saying two young boys were being starved and beaten by their parents. She would later say that no one at DSHS ever followed up with her, court records show.
The father, Danny Abegg, and his girlfriend, Marilea Mitchell, kept a padlock on the refrigerator and withheld food to punish the boys. A social worker, Aubrey Kilgore, in one visit reported that the house “had plenty of food in it.”
He went back a second time after a sheriff’s deputy, shopping at Wal-Mart, saw bruises on the face of the 3-year-old, and alerted DSHS. This time, Kilgore required the parents to see a family therapist, documents show.
The child-welfare case was transferred that fall to another social worker, Deanna Neff. Among her failures, she gave Abegg eight-days notice she would be visiting the home, giving him time to hide evidence of abuse. Nor did she speak to the more severely abused younger brother, Shayne, records show.
A few months later, Ada Sharp, who had no experience or training investigating child abuse, was given the case, court records show. Other warning signs surfaced, records show, but Cherokee Screechowl, the area supervisor, ended the investigation in February 2007.
A month later, someone alerted authorities that a little boy was being “starved.” Paramedics rushed Shayne, now 4, to the hospital where he was found in urine-soaked clothes, emaciated, with a body temperature of 87 degrees. After being given food at the hospital, the boy told doctors not to let his parents know that he had eaten. A veteran paramedic later said he had not seen “a worse case of neglect or malnourishment.”
After Abegg and Mitchell were charged with first-degree criminal mistreatment, the case, with its sickening details and claims of DSHS failures, exploded in the news. Gov. Chris Gregoire asked for a special review, and DSHS said its employees failed to protect the two boys.
At the time, a DSHS spokesman said two employees linked to the case had resigned. DSHS recently said one of the four did receive a letter of reprimand.
Kilgore and Sharp still work at DSHS. Neff resigned from the agency. Screechowl resigned in 2007, came back in 2011 and then re-retired.
Screechowl could not be located; the other did not return calls for comment.
Shayne Abegg received $5 million from the state in 2009 after a judge compared him to a concentration-camp survivor. His older brother received $2.85 million two years later.
Danny Abegg sits after being arrested for criminal mistreatment of son Shayne, 4, who weighed 22 pounds. Shayne got $5 million from the state after judge compared him to a concentration-camp survivor. (Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office)
“It is a war zone”
If the high-profile Snohomish stavation case didn't result in someone being punished, what sort of case would?
“This story has been going on for 30 years,” said Dennis Braddock, DSHS secretary from 2000 to 2005. He oncedescribed DSHS’ culture as “bunkerlike” and said he tried to hold staffers to account but faced an uphill battle.
“Republicans don’t like administration,” he recently said. “Democrats all side with the union. So management gets the short end of the stick in [employee] disputes.”
It’s a proven formula: To effectively serve children and families, social workers need a reasonable number of cases to manage, a finding backed by decades of state and national studies.
Currently, the average caseload for child-protective-services (CPS) workers — Children’s Administration employees who investigate reports of child neglect — is 16, well above the national standard of no more than 12. Also, it takes on average two years for a CPS investigator “to become proficient,” DSHS said.
Since 2008, the Children’s Administration has lost 300 employees. This year, for the first time since, the division received an additional $7.2 million for 43 employees and other resources, an attempt to lower caseloads and improve investigations.
Greg Devereux, executive director of the Washington Federation of State Employees, which represents unionized DSHS staff, describes social-worker caseloads, burnout and turnover in dire terms: “It is a war zone.”
Some former DSHS officials and child advocates point to his union when noting that individual discipline doesn’t always occur. DSHS is required to have substantial documentation to punish negligent employees, they assert, and the arbitration process can be time-consuming.
“That’s ridiculous,” Devereux said. The union makes sure DSHS “fairly holds people accountable.”
In the past eight years, the union went to arbitration on only two cases of Children’s Administration social workers who were terminated, he said. One firing was upheld; the other employee was reinstated.
“I don’t think anyone in the field can credibly deny that there’s a scary connection between overburdened workers and risk of harm to kids,” said Ira Lustbader, litigation director of Children’s Rights, a national organization that advocates and files lawsuits to bring accountability to child-welfare systems.
Lustbader’s organization has filed lawsuits in other states arguing high caseloads are a civil-rights violation for children because it puts them in harm’s way.
“They’re poor. They’re disproportionately of color. They’re not a legislative priority.”
“These kids don’t vote. They’re poor. They’re disproportionately of color. They’re not a legislative priority,” he said.
Not held accountable
Even so, heavy caseloads cannot always explain away mistakes or why they go unpunished. According to interviews with 10 plaintiff attorneys who have brought personal-injury cases against DSHS, none of them has heard of a social worker being disciplined for failing to protect someone.
David Moody is a Seattle lawyer who has brought lawsuits against DSHS that resulted in $86 million in verdicts or settlements since 2000. “There’s a constellation of warnings and a corresponding constellation of failures by DSHS to heed those warnings,” said Moody, lawyer for the Abegg children. “No one is held accountable.”
DSHS Secretary Kevin Quigley declined to be interviewed. In an email, he wrote that the agency has an improved performance-evaluation system and is more aggressive about dismissing subpar workers during their probation period.
“I understand the solution for some is to blame the caseworker every time a mistake is made but when we are some 30 percent above a reasonable caseload that can be like sending the Seahawks to play the Super Bowl with 2/3 of a team then firing them when they lose,” Quigley wrote.
Some officials note that the state does have another tool to hold DSHS accountable: The Office of Family and Children’s Ombuds. Director Patrick Dowd says the office plays a neutral role when it intervenes in cases in which DSHS failed to act or was unreasonable.
However, he said, his office’s “focus is on the actions of the agency and not the specific caseworker.”
