DCF adoption cases hurt by shortage of attorneys
By Kathleen Chapman

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Monday, December 04, 2006

As the number of foster children in Palm Beach County grows, the state of
Florida is spending less on attorneys who help move the children into adoptive
homes.

The number of attorneys who specialize in freeing children for adoption has
dropped from four to two, and the Department of Children and Families' budget
for attorneys in Palm Beach County is now less than it was four years ago.

A new state law says children should be out of foster care within a year, but
that is more difficult without enough attorneys to move the children's cases
through the courts, advocates say.

A shortage of attorneys might also separate more biological families, according
to an October report on the rising number of children in foster care. Child
abuse investigators in one Palm Beach County office were not allowed to ask the
courts to establish supervision of children in their parents' homes for a month
because the attorneys were overwhelmed with cases.

Any children thought to be at risk that month were automatically taken into
state custody, according to the report's authors, who included DCF managers from
other regions and an expert from the University of South Florida.

Local DCF workers are trying to make up for the shortfalls, said John Walsh, who
heads the Foster Children's Project of the Legal Aid Society, "but you can't
stretch a twin sheet over a queen-sized mattress.''

Foster Children's Project attorneys, whose salaries come from part of a $1.7
million annual grant from the local Children's Services Council, are now arguing
the state's position in many of the trials that determine whether biological
parents will lose rights to their children. Children cannot be adopted until
their parents have lost rights in court, and though the cases against parents
have always been a state responsibility, Legal Aid attorneys say they would
rather pitch in than see the kids grow any older without a stable home.

A new law designed to move children out of foster care in a year instead of the
former 18 months will likely put even more pressure on DCF attorneys, said
Foster Children's Project attorney Amy Genet.

"I don't know how they are going to get the kids through the system in less than
a year if they don't have the attorneys," Genet said.

Laura Tingo, spokeswoman for DCF in Palm Beach County, said all attorneys there
pitch in on termination-of-rights cases. The state also pays $50,000 a year for
help from contract attorneys. The attorney and investigator positions lost in
Palm Beach County were not cut from the overall state budget, but transferred to
regions that have higher caseloads than Palm Beach, Tingo said.

But some community leaders ask why help for children in one region has to come
at another's expense. State leaders in Tallahassee "won't do what needs to be
done and go to the legislature and say we need more money for these kids," Walsh
said.

In 2004, reviewers from the Florida Bar's Law Office Management Assistance
Service visited offices of DCF attorneys across the state. The attorneys are
responsible for deciding whether there is enough legal evidence to take a child
into custody, updating judges on the children's care and filing motions that
return them to their biological parents or free them for adoption.

The reviewers from the bar were astonished by the attorneys' working conditions.

They "face tremendous challenges on the job unlike any LOMAS has observed in
private practice or in other state employment opportunities" the report said.
Reviewers said the ratio of assistants to attorneys was the worst they had seen
in 25 years. There were so few people to help that attorneys often made their
own copies. DCF attorneys in some parts of the state said they often bought
their own tape, pens and furniture when the state was short, the report said,
and one office salvaged chairs from a trash bin.

In one office, a Bar reviewer "observed that every attorney had a personal
printer, which was good. Then the advisor discovered there was only one toner
cartridge in the office, and the attorneys had to swap back and forth to print -
not good."

The report also said some regions had run out of money to reimburse expert
witnesses who testified at trial.

The state has increased money for DCF legal services from $39.4 million in
2004-05 to $42 million this fiscal year. But those gains went to other regions.
The budget for legal services in Palm Beach County declined from $1.9 million in
2002-03 to $1.7 million for 2006-07. To save money, the state eliminated four
support workers and two attorneys last year.

The attorneys make about $39,000 a year to start, which is on par with beginning
salaries for the public defender and state attorney's office. DCF attorneys go
up to $51,600 once they have two years of experience.

Moria Rozenson, an attorney who now represents parents whose children are in
state custody, was one of two DCF attorneys in 1993 who specialized in
terminating parents' rights. Even back then, two attorneys were not enough, she
said."

The job of a DCF attorney is stressful, she said: "You are involved with very
important issues in people's lives, and children's well-being is on the line. So
you want to do your job properly."

Tana Ebbole, who heads the Children's Services Council taxing district, said the
state's cuts for attorneys are another example of shifting costs from state
government to local communities. The Foster Children's Project is supposed to be
helping children in foster care find permanent homes more quickly, she said, not
pick up what has always been the state's job.

State leaders should ask for more money from the legislature to fill an
important need, the practice of cutting one program to help another is
"inexcusable," Ebbole said.



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