Lawmakers are using the death of Emani Moss of Gwinnett County as a symbol for why Georgia’s child welfare system should be dismantled and contracted out to private agencies. The 10-year-old’s picture was shown on an overhead screen Tuesday while the bill’s author, Sen. Renee Unterman, R-Buford, made her case for a public/private system. But critics claim the bill doesn’t address the state’s failures in Emani’s case. Here’s a look at Emani’s case and how the state involvement would differ under the new law.
Overview: Emani, 10, starved to death in November and was dead three days before her 32-pound body was found in a trash can outside her Lawrenceville apartment. Police arrested her father, Eman Moss, and her stepmother, Tiffany Moss, on charges of murder and other offenses.
State action: The state fired two employees and punished four others, finding that employees and supervisors with the Division of Family and Children Services failed to assess the risks to the child or to properly review the family's troubled history.
*History with DFCS:
March 2010: Emani Moss, who had bruises and welts, told a school official she was afraid to go home. She was removed from the home for several weeks. Tiffany Moss was charged with child cruelty. Emani’s grandmother, Robin Moss, said she took care of the child at that time. DFCS referred the parents to parenting and anger-management classes. Caseworkers returned Emani to the family home after determining that the parents had “made significant positive changes” that reduced the risk of further abuse. The girl “made no further outcry of being physically punished,” the report said. The agency signed off on a plea deal with Tiffany Moss, who received five years’ probation. DFCS closed the case in November 2010.
May 2012: School officials contacted DFCS after Emani complained about being hit in the back of the head. The injuries were dismissed by DFCS as acceptable corporal punishment.
August 2013: A tipster told DFCS that Emani appeared to be underfed. It was dismissed because the tipster had not seen the family in three months and didn’t have their current address.
Under proposed law: Caseworkers from private agencies rather than the state would have been assigned to handle Emani's case following the March 2010 allegation of abuse. They would have worked with a judge to determine Emani's placement outside the home — whether in private foster care or with family. And they would work with a judge to determine whether it was suitable for Emani to return home.
Private companies — most likely nonprofits — would have also been in charge of providing the anger-management classes, although under current law the state contracts with the private companies for such services.
But private companies would have no involvement following the allegations of May 2012 and August 2013. That’s because under the proposed law, the state would still be in charge of investigating all claims of abuse and determining whether further action is warranted. Private agencies wouldn’t get involved until it was determined that additional services were warranted.
*Documents released by DFCS are heavily redacted, making many details unclear.
Coming Sunday
Proponents of the Senate Bill 350 point to Florida’s privatization law as a model of success. But the reality is more nuanced than that: Along with the successes have come some dismal – and deadly – failures. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports from Tampa on Sunday.
Foster care, adoption and other child welfare services provided by the state could soon be administered by private agencies under a bill passed Tuesday by the state Senate.
Senate Bill 350 would require the Division of Family and Children Services to bid out primary functions such as case management, family preservation and independent living. DFCS would still conduct investigations and handle claims of child abuse and neglect.
After a two-hour debate, lawmakers voted 31-18 to approve the legislation, which now goes to the House of Representatives. Sen. Renee Unterman, R-Buford, who sponsored SB 350, said a vote against the legislation would be a vote in favor of bigger government.
“I’m sorry, bigger government doesn’t work,” she said in response to criticism from Democrats. “It’s a philosophical divide.”
Unterman flashed a picture of Emani Moss on an overhead projector while she made her case for the bill. Emani, a 10-year-old from Gwinnett County who starved to death last year, has become a symbol for the need for changes to the system.
But critics say the bill doesn’t address the state failures that led up to Emani’s death, and they accused Unterman and other lawmakers of using the disturbing details to drum up support for the changes. The state dismissed allegations of abuse in Emani’s home, but the bill does not change the state’s investigative role — known as the child protection system.
"I think it is cynical to use the deaths of these children for a bill that has nothing to do with the deaths," said Sen. Vincent Fort, D-Atlanta.
Unterman and other sponsors said switching to private providers will likely end up costing more money, but they could not say how much. Critics say lawmakers haven’t been upfront about the cost, and they say the state weakened DFCS over the years by cutting its budget.
Gov. Nathan Deal, who has come out in support of privatization, has already proposed to spend $27 million over the next three years to hire more than 500 DFCS caseworkers and supervisors — an increase of 26 percent. The bill will likely be altered at Deal’s request once it gets to the House of Representatives.
In its current form, the bill calls for DFCS to submit a plan by January 2015 on how the bidding process would work. Private companies who win the contracts — most likely nonprofits — would have to meet yet-to-be-established performance measurements. The new system would allow the state to better track the outcome of children in the system, according to supporters. The massive overhaul is modeled after a similar system in Florida, which began moving toward privatization in the 1990s.
The changes are contingent on the state receiving a funding waiver from the U.S. government, which currently restricts how federal money can be used to care for foster children. Changes would be phased in over a two-year period beginning in July 2015.
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