A brewing disagreement about how to deal with child protection caseworkers who fabricate records has taken an unexpected turn — with one arm of state government charging another $30 per hour to gather information requested under the Colorado Open Records Act.
The information dispute, which brings up a host of questions including whether that’s the best use of public dollars, is between the Office of the Colorado Child Protection Ombudsman and the Colorado Department of Human Services.
The two agencies have been working to close a gap in the system that allows caseworkers accused of falsifying records against families or lying about checking on children to transfer to another county, with no requirement to notify the new county or even the families involved.
Ombudsman Stephanie Villafuerte — whose duties include investigating complaints made by families about the child welfare system — is trying to get to the bottom of how often caseworkers fabricate records, what their supervisors do about it, and whether the families are told what happened.
So when the Colorado Department of Human Services mentioned in the rulemaking process this summer that it was aware of 11 suspected incidents of falsification in nine counties in a six-month period, the ombudsman asked for more information.
The ombudsman’s director of client services, Amanda Pennington, requested the names of the nine counties, the time frames in which the falsification was alleged to have occurred, the case identification numbers in the state child welfare database, and details about how the falsifications were discovered. The request was made in a June 7 letter obtained by The Colorado Sun under public records laws.
The office “consistently hears from clients who believe that false, biased or insufficient child welfare records have negatively impacted them,” Pennington wrote. In addition, the ombudsman “has received several complaints regarding the misconduct of child welfare staff, often including concerns that these staff have falsified records.”
Instead of sending the requested information, the state human services department responded that “child case files and records are highly confidential.” Child welfare officials do not have to release case information to the child protection ombudsman unless the ombudsman provides a specific child or family’s case, the state agency said in a June 21 response.
A week later, the ombudsman’s office tried again, arguing that state law does not require the ombudsman to cite a specific child’s case in order to access information. In fact, the office “is tasked with not only accepting cases that involve systemic concerns, but it also charges the agency with proactively identifying systemic issues and analyzing such issues,” its letter said.
The ombudsman is currently investigating five suspected falsification cases that expose “systemic failures” by counties and the state, including that families were not told about the misconduct and that staff involved in the misconduct continued to keep working with families, the ombudsman’s office told the state.
Without more information about the 11 suspected cases the state child welfare division knows about, the ombudsman is “unable to corroborate” whether they are the same ones its office is investigating and “will not be able to effectively determine the scale of the systemic issues alleged,” the letter said.
When the state human services department again refused, the ombudsman’s office fired off a request under the Colorado Open Records Act, a move normally used by journalists and citizens who are trying to obtain information from government agencies.
Human services department wants $60 deposit
The human services department responded July 16 that it would charge the ombudsman $30 per hour to research, retrieve and redact the requested documents. A $60 deposit was required, by check, money order or wire transfer. The work was expected to take a minimum of three hours, and the first hour is free, the department said.
“By law, every state agency is allowed to charge CORA requestors, regardless of who they are, a per-hour rate to research, retrieve and redact responsive records,” human services spokesperson Jordan Saenz said in an email to The Sun on Monday. The agency “applies this policy consistently across requestors so as to make the process fair and equitable to everyone who may request a record.”
The ombudsman’s office has not yet paid the fee because it’s still figuring out how best for one state agency to transfer the money to the other.
The nature of the relationship between the state’s child watchdog and the state child welfare department is adversarial, but this is the first time the ombudsman has tried to get information from the human services department through the Colorado Open Records Act.
The ombudsman’s office was created in 2010, the legislature’s response to public outcry after it was revealed that 12 children died from abuse and neglect in 2007 even though they were known to child protection caseworkers. And in 2015, after the ombudsman at the time accused state officials of interfering in a child death investigation, the legislature made the office independent of the state child welfare department.
New policy doesn’t include caseworker decertification
The two agencies have been working to strengthen the laws regarding bad caseworkers after a string of high-profile cases in recent years.
In Larimer County last year, a child protection worker was accused of lying about interviewing at least 10 families. In Moffat County in 2020, investigators found at least 50 child abuse reports that contained fake details, all written by a caseworker who fabricated stories about checking on children. And in Denver in 2015, a child protection worker lied in her paperwork to make it look like she had checked on a newborn baby born with marijuana in her system. Two months later, the baby was killed by her mother.
Under state regulations, if there is no criminal case, no one has to know about the past behavior — not the caseworker’s potential new employer or even the children and parents whose records were falsified. Counties aren’t even required to tell the state Division of Child Welfare.
A new policy approved this month by the state Board of Human Services stipulates that counties must complete an investigation into suspected falsification of records even if the caseworker resigns or is terminated. When there is a confirmed case of falsification, the county must notify the state within three days, law enforcement within 10 days, and the parents or guardians of the child involved within 10 days.
Some advocates for children and families, including the ombudsman’s office, were critical of the new rules because they do not include a process for stripping caseworkers of their certification, which would prevent them from getting a job in another county.
“I don’t think we’ve gone far enough,” said board vice chair and family law attorney Mychael Dave, the only board member to vote against the new rules. “I think the right direction is for us to pause and actually fix this. My fear is that it won’t get fixed because there is a countervailing push from the counties. The counties’ desire to make sure they get their personnel issues right, which I respect, is secondary to making sure we protect these children and their families.”
State human services officials were asked to return to the board in six months to report on progress toward developing a caseworker de-certification process.