SARATOGA COUNTY >> State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said Saratoga County needs to do more to combat child abuse and cases of repeated neglect. The claims were then disputed by the county’s Social Services commissioner, claiming the audit didn’t account for many variables.
The county’s recurrence rate has increased form 14.9 percent in March 2008 to 21.5 percent as of September 2012, the rate is generated based on the percentage of abused children who were neglected more than once over a six-month period, according to the audit.
An annual average of 361 child mistreatment cases were recorded in Saratoga County during the four-and-a-half years, with an average recurrence rate of 18.6 percent, according to the state. A rate much higher than the state’s 12.4 percent rate and more than three times the national standard of 5.4 percent in 2012, the comptroller said.
The audit said the county’s actions to reduce recurrence of child abuse and neglect have not been sufficient. It specifically said that the county department of Social Services did not fully implement a program improvement plan, or a plan designed to better track substantiated claims of alleged child abuse, so it can work to reduce its recurrence rate.
The county began tracking repeat cases in May 2012 and should fully analyze the data collected to provide proactive measures to reduce neglect, the comptroller’s report said.
Auditors also interview county workers and supervisors to find that they might have done differently to prevent repeat cases of abuse and neglect.
“These caseworkers and supervisors often told us that the caregiver or other individual residing in the home had mental health issues or a drug-use condition,” the audit states. “However, in all cases, the caseworker and supervisor could not think of any other actions they may have taken to prevent a recurrence. The county does not require re-examination of recurrence cases and does not do so.”
The audit provided advice and strategy to the county to continue to track recurrence cases and analyze trends on their own, to help predict future outcomes and form proactive and preventative measures to further reduce recurrences of child abuse.
Tina Potter, commissioner of the Saratoga County Social Services Department told DiNapoli the county would prepare a corrective action plan to improve its performance, in a letter from Nov. 2013, following completion of the audit.
The audit reviewed Child Protective Services in Saratoga, Washington, Ulster, Dutchess, Livingston, Niagara, Oneida and Rockland counties to determine if the units were working to lower their recurrence rates.
The audit found Washington County made “significant progress” reducing its recurrence rate, to 11.6 percent from 20.3 percent over the same four-and-a-half-year period. As with Saratoga County, the report noted Washington County’s rate is nearly double the national of 5.4 percent.
The comptroller’s office made similar suggestions to Washington County analyze its cases to better understand recurrences.
In January 2010, Washington County implemented a state-approved alternative response program but the audit said the county has not formally evaluated the program to determine if it reduced recurrences.
For information about child abuse preventive services in Saratoga County, call the Department of Social Services’ Children’s Services Unit at 884-4151 or 884-4152. To make a report, call the Child Abuse and Maltreatment Hotline at 1-800-342-3720.
