It’s even worse than city admits

THE city is deceptive when it says child-welfare workers are now handling an average of about nine cases at a time — when the real figure is easily more than 20, at least in The Bronx.

That’s a big reason why there’s such high turnover at the Administration for Children’s Services. Many caseworkers use their job as a stepping stone toward a better gig with Probation or Parole because there’s just no respect for them with ACS.

The pressure is on to do more and more, and it’s coming from the top.

Yet many of the bosses, they don’t give a s--t.

There are caseworkers who have 30 to 35 years on the job. They stay because they care deeply about the children. But they need security. They need a little love from the higherups and from the mayor.

And it’s only gotten tougher for them since the beating death of Zymere Perkins in Harlem. The four supervisors who were involved should have been suspended, because I think somebody had to pay. But now some cases have become like hot potatoes — nobody wants to get caught up in them.

Everybody gets tight whenever something like that happens. Supervisors are over-scrutinizing. But there will be more kids slipping through the cracks no matter what because of the way things are structured, and because the city’s too big. That’s the sad reality. Officials may seem like they’re trying to improve things with more training and by reshuffling the deck of supervisors. But there’s too much bureaucracy. There’s too much red tape.

This is a problematic agency — always has been, always will be.

We need somebody from the NYPD to take over — a strong no-nonsense pitbull of a manager to figure s--t out.