Brewer just treating CPS symptoms

Gov. Jan Brewer is treating the symptom, not the disease. Taking care of the 6,000plus cases of possible child abuse that went without investigation — which must be done — won’t solve the problem at the heart of Arizona’s Child Protective Services.

The botched cases aren’t the disease; they’re a symptom.

As Dana Naimark of the Children’s Action Alliance said: “This reconfirms what we’ve already known about the system, which is that it is overwhelmed and can’t function appropriately. It needs revamping and needs more resources.”

That last word is something Arizona lawmakers don’t want to hear — “resources.”

What it means, essentially, is more qualified caseworkers who are better paid. In other words, more money.

At a news conference today Gov. Brewer announced that she was forming an independent Child Advocate Response Examination (CARE) Team that will look into cases that were designated as “not investigated” by CPS. She pointed out that the failure to investigate those cases is not the fault of caseworkers. The cases never got to them.

She went out of her way to praise the men and women working on what she called “the front lines” and admitted that they are “overworked and overburdened.” It’s all true. Unfortunately, as vital as the governor’s CARE Team will be to resolving the current crisis with the 6,000-plus cases that weren’t investigated, it won’t get to the root cause of the problem — too much work for too few people.

In a column I wrote for Sunday’s I quoted a caseworker who told me several years ago: “Tragedy happens and society wants to know who should be blamed. We all should.

“There is a lot of talk about the workload. Yes, it is extreme. It is so bad that good friends who have put in many years are quitting because they can’t keep up. They are afraid that they will miss one little detail and their case will be next in the news… Some people blame it on lack of funding. Well, that is true. … A couple of years ago, the Legislature imposed mandates and reforms that led to triple the amount of paperwork, triple the amount of time to work a case, triple the caseload, less pay, no overtime, mandatory furlough days, higher insurance cost for less benefits.”

We ask those “overburdened,” underpaid caseworkers on the “front lines” to make decisions that are potentially life or death under conditions that few of us could deal with.

Arizona politicians have been saying for years that money is not the problem with CPS.

It’s not the only problem, but it’s at the heart of it.

One way or another, Arizona lawmakers have to decide how we will pay for the CPS crisis.

We can pay in cash, which lawmakers don’t like, or we can continue paying in lost children.