It's a symptom of larger issues within the state's Department of Family and Protective Services.
Three Child Protective Services workers are now without a job. Two of those workers were fired, one of them resigned after the agency was accused of failing to prevent the death of a 4-year-old girl in Grand Prairie, The girl's parents have been arrested and charged with injury to a child. CPS is trying to figure out if case workers mismanaged reports.
All this comes in the wake of another issue – an unusually high number of Dallas County CPS investigators quitting the job. So much so that the state has rushed to replace those workers by plucking investigators from other parts of the state. Robert Garrett has been covering the story for the Dallas Morning News. He says that staff turnover in Dallas County is unusually high. In the first quarter of the fiscal year, CPS staff were leaving at a rate of 57 percent per year. That raised eyebrows within the agency.
"Theres an investigation, internally, of that at the Department of Protective Services. My reporting showed that there was a change in leadership over Dallas County investigations last year," Garrett says.
Several factors have influenced workers to leave. A major one is frustration with the system.
Of course, all of this comes against the backdrop of agency-wide failings. The staff resignations are more like a symptom of larger problems within the state's Child Protective Services system.
With all of the problems, Garrett calls the situation a "big ugly mess" that will demand attention next legislative session.