Changes proposed to deal with Children's Administration workload

Senators suggested a few ways to reduce workload in the Children's Administration Tuesday, arousing the opposition of the employees' union.

Sen. Jim Hargrove, chairman of the Senate Human Services Committee, pointed to a recent study that says the agency would need another 1,500 social workers to do all of the work it's assigned.

He and colleagues on the committee proposed requiring:

• Contracting with private agencies for routine monthly visits to dependent children, SB 6871.

• Making 15 percent of all new social worker hires level one and two positions, intended to help senior social workers with their administrative tasks, SB 6891.

• Reaching national accreditation for all field offices this year, SB 6766.

Union representatives, children's advocates and the head of the Children's Administration commended the senators on their initiative, but took issue with parts of the bills.

Notably, the Washington Federation of State Employees, which represents the agency social workers, said contracting out visits would violate their contracts.

"We will always be opposed to legislative mandates to contract out work our members do," federation lobbyist Dennis Eagle said.

Hargrove said he wanted to send routine work to private agencies, so social workers would have more time to handle complex cases. He noted he met with several social workers personally.

"Gee, Dennis, I thought this is what your people told me, but I guess maybe we missed something," he said.

Ursula Petters, a social worker from Kitsap County, told the legislators the ideas need fine-tuning.

"We are having a crisis in terms of workload," she said. "In addition, the cases we're handling at Children's Administration are become more and more complicated."

She said a requirement to hire more administrative help for senior social workers, not lower-level social workers, is needed because in practice even new social workers are asked to carry their own cases.

She also said the accreditation process — in which 40 of 44 regional offices have received approval — has added to the workload.

Hargrove said he and others are willing to change their proposals, but dictating changes in the operation of the Children's Administration are fair game for lowering the burden on social workers.

"Obviously, we can decrease the caseload by hiring 1,500," he said. "But it seems like the management job is too big if we just continue to swell the work force."