With income tax day less than a month away, we might consider withholding that part of our bills that fund the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. Time for a tax protest aimed squarely at DCFS.
That’s because those who oversee, operate and work for the state agency don’t seem to be doing their jobs. Even after receiving more than $2.4 billion in taxpayer funding during fiscal year 2025, according to state budget figures.
Some may remember back in the bad old days of the 1960s and ‘70s, tax resisters rose up to protest the Vietnam War. The protesters, as a matter of conscience, refused to pay any federal income tax or withheld what they considered a percentage of their tax bill which funded the war.
Doing the same would send a message to Gov. JB Pritzker that DCFS needs to be held accountable for their inaction, most recently the investigation into the abuse and eventually Feb. 6 death of 8-year-old Markell Pierce of Round Lake Beach. Joseph States’ front-page News-Sun report last week detailed alleged mishandling of the youngster’s brutal history over a four-year period.
Of course, if we don’t pay a portion of our state income tax by April 15, we will face the same consequences as did tax resisters during the Vietnam War: Bricking of bank accounts, wage garnishments, brusque visits from Internal Revenue Service agents, and, possibly, jail time.
And after all that, Pritzker may not even get the point as he’s busy campaigning for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination. Yet, one can dream of taking a conscientious objector stand.
If there is a weak spot in Pritzker’s national drive or for a third four-year term in Springfield, it is DCFS. The governor, like others before him, can’t seem to find the answer to the continuing errors committed by employees of the state agency.
Over the years across Illinois, there has been a litany of agency miscues, blunders and downright neglect, including several in Lake County. The department needs another shakeup, which the governor should undertake.
In the most recent example, it seems the state’s agents just threw up their hands in the Markell Pierce case and walked away, leaving the child in a continued abusive situation. Or as Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart termed it: A “slow-motion murder”.
The youngster’s mother, Dominique Servant, 33, and her live-in boyfriend, Joey Ruffin, 38, are charged with the boy’s murder. A homicide that could have been avoided if DCFS workers had done their jobs.
If bureaucrats in other state agencies mess up, they likely get a reprimand in their personnel file. It may follow them in the state’s serpentine bureaucracy, part of their permanent record.
At the DCFS, if you slip up, at the very least you make headlines. Worst case, a youngster dies.
You’d think they’d be more efficient at their jobs and pay attention to details when interviewing families while charged with the life-changing decisions they are supposed to make. Apparently not.
Such painful disregard by some of the agency’s more than 4,000 employees has the perception of defining the appropriate actions of their co-workers. Those who earn their pay get painted with the same brush.
The tragic death of Markell Pierce should never have happened. Usually, in situations like this, what is at fault is the continued mantra of the DCFS to keep families together. Surely, there are circumstances when children need to be taken from their parental domiciles and placed in safer environments because of abuse.
Markell’s case is one of them. According to States’ March 21 account, DCFS caseworkers had plenty of contact with the lad’s family, going back four years. DCFS logged contact with the family in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.
The agents appeared to know young Markell was losing weight, forced to eat crappy food, whipped with a belt and slapped around. Other kids in the household also had been physically abused, including a 10-year-old girl who withstood routine beatings with a belt over a 22-month period, Lake County authorities discovered.
An autopsy by the Lake County Coroner’s Office determined the boy was malnourished and had numerous bruises on his body. DCFS agents closed their files on the family last September after they said they couldn’t reach the boy’s mother. Guess their Rolodexes didn’t include contact information or where Ms. Servant worked.
Surprisingly, she was employed as a paraprofessional since October 2023 by the Special Education District of Lake County at Fairhaven School in Mundelein, which has students ranging from kindergarten to high school enrolled in language and social skills education. In a statement, SEDOL officials said “during her employment, Ms. Servant performed her assigned duties without any reported concerns.”
Unfortunately, she couldn’t do the same in her own household, nor could DCFS caseworkers.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor. sellenews@gmail.com. X @sellenews
