'Basic' Paperwork Oversight Cost The State Millions In Child Welfare Money

By Mae Rice in News on Jan 13, 2016 5:21PM

We all know Illinois is bad at certain things, like passing a state budget. Now, add to the list of Illinois’ Achilles heels what the Tribune angrily terms “basic paperwork.”

Illinois child welfare officials failed to fill out key forms for years, and as a result, the state has lost out on millions of dollars of federal funding—roughly $40 million, according to an estimate from the acting Director of Department of Children & Family Services (DCFS), George Sheldon.

This funding issue, last year, was compounded by the budget impasse.

Sheldon and his team have been working to right this enduring wrong. So far, they’ve landed the state $21.5 million in federal dollars for this fiscal year, and another $16.5 for the upcoming one.

At least $14 million of the new federal money, which can be used for any DCFS project, will go in part to a court-ordered overhaul of the agency, the Tribune reports. The order came after a Tribune investigative series that revealed a rape epidemic at the state’s residential treatment centers for juveniles.

The error—caused by DCFS wards in the 18 to 21 age range getting misclassified en masse—was a product of high turnover in the department, Sheldon told the Tribune. (The department has had eight new directors in five years, Sheldon said.)