June 03, 2004
WHEN IS ASSISTING families in trouble a bad thing? According to the state Department of Human Resources, when it might cause someone somewhere to think government is too big.
State welfare officials are refusing to allow Howard County's social services office to use county and private money to fill five vacancies in the agency. Why? "When asked why positions with no state funding are not allowed to be filled, the answer [from state officials] is the `perception' of increasing state government is not acceptable," reads a county Department of Social Services report given to the Howard Social Services Board last month. So delaying or offering rush-rush services to kids is?
It's not as if DHR is worker-heavy: The number of social service staffers in Howard is down by about 25 percent since a statewide hiring freeze went into effect in 2001, yet the need for their services is steady or growing. DHR figures showed 241 child welfare staff vacancies statewide at the end of 2003, and that didn't count the positions that had been eliminated. The administration has authorized hiring 79 social workers who just graduated from the University of Maryland; Howard will get two.
That's a far cry from the governor's campaign promise to exempt child welfare workers from the state's hiring freeze. Turns out the jobs aren't described as "frozen," they're just not being filled.
The positions the county wishes to fund -- and has funded in the past -- are the unsung jobs that keep an agency functioning. They are office clerks and admissions workers, the people who greet families at the office door and speedily process their paperwork so they can get the help they need. At some offices, specialists are having to fill shifts on front-desk duty instead of doing their own work, with which they are overloaded in the first place. Not a smart allocation of funds, manpower or services.
DHR argues that if it lets others pay for state worker positions, it might end up having to foot the bill if the outside money ever dries up, because the positions are protected by the state workers' union. But it accepts federal funding for other DHR jobs that have the same caveat. And it's hard to believe the state wouldn't need an office clerk somewhere else.
DHR and its satellite Department of Social Services agencies tackle some of the toughest problems the state faces: broken and breaking families, homeless and jobless people, those newly and permanently disabled. If municipalities and private providers want to pony up money to make their local DSS office more effective, the state agency should thank its lucky stars, not snub those who would help the agency and its clients.
