Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dawn Clark Netsch proposed a restructuring of Illinois’ human services programs Wednesday to pick up the slack when “good parenting” breaks down.
GOP Gov. Jim Edgar promptly accused Netsch of borrowing an idea already in the works to allow troubled families “one-stop” access to services, provide clients with one caseworker and save millions of dollars by merging what are now overlapping functions of different agencies.
Netsch, the state comptroller, said her proposal would reduce the chances that troubled children, such as 11-year-old Robert Sandifer, would slip through cracks in the system.
Robert was found slain last week, apparently at the hands of fellow street gang members, while he was being sought as a suspect in the slaying of a 14-year-old neighbor girl. Police said Robert killed the girl as he fired shots at rival gang members.
Robert’s family also had had prior contact with the state Department of Children and Family Services.
“We are looking for a way of untangling the web of bureaucracy, the agency upon agency upon agency,” Netsch said at a press conference. “Good parenting is the real key to stemming the tide of violence among young people. When parents fail-and they do sometimes-the state has got to be able to intervene.”
Edgar later contended Netsch had committed public-policy plagiarism because the plan she announced was earlier conceived by a task force he had appointed.
Furthermore, Edgar said, the state recently received a $2.5 million private grant to implement a pilot program of health and social-service reform in selected communities. The governor’s remarks came at a ceremony where he signed a bill to strengthen the state’s efforts to protect children from abuse and neglect.
“I guess the best compliment is when somebody lifts your ideas,” Edgar said, “even if she doesn’t give you credit for it.”
Indeed, some aspects of Netsch’s proposal mirror the governor’s task force recommendations, unveiled in March. For instance, the task force called for one-stop access to services, a single caseworker for each family entering the system and establishing a network of neighborhood groups, churches and local social-service agencies to assess and treat clients.
But the Netsch campaign vehemently denied that her proposal was copied from the task-force findings. Instead, Netsch aides insisted, it was drafted independently after consulting social-service providers and their clients, as well as culling ideas from previous human services reform proposals.
Netsch also heaped on Edgar much of the blame for the current labyrinth of programs, the confusion often caused by multiple human-service agencies and caseworkers, the turnover of agency directors and, indirectly, the deaths of children being serviced by DCFS.
Twelve of the 15-pages of her proposal to transform the system, includes caustic criticisms of her opponent.
“DCFS is an absolute mess,” Netsch said. “The governor has provided neither the direction nor the leadership to turn that agency around.”
The main component of Netsch’s proposal calls for the creation of a new government subcabinet, composed of the directors of the state’s various human service agencies. That panel, in coordination with private agencies, would set up a system in which families could fill out a standard application and be eligible for the full spectrum of state services.
Currently, families sometimes deal with as many as six separate state agencies in situations involving child abuse and neglect, poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness and retardation or general health problems.
