The number of cases of suspected child abuse in the State of New York has been increasing in recent years. The unions representing child protective service workers (“CPS WORKERS”) in Nassau and Suffolk Counties has been asking Governor Andrew M. Cuomo to sign a piece of legislation that had been approved by the state legislature. This legislation established the caseload of 15 cases per month for each CPS worker. The CPS workers claim they cannot handle caseloads of greater than 15 cases per month. They claim that many of them are facing caseloads in excess of 20 matters per month.
CPS WORKER’S UNION
The union representatives for the CPS workers are claiming that they cannot adequately investigate the cases assigned to them when they have more than 15 cases per month assigned to each case worker.
Currently in Nassau County there are 64 case workers working for CPS. This number has increased from 58 in 2012. In 2011 there were approximately 7,000 reported cases in Nassau County and in 2015 there were approximately 5,780 cases reported in Nassau County. Suffolk County currently has 91 child protective service workers. Last year the Suffolk County child protective services (CPS) investigated almost 9,000 cases.
Daniel Lezler Comer, the President of the Suffolk County Association of County Employees recently stated: “When you don’t have the staffing levels you need, people are overworked, things get rushed, and if mistakes happen, you are talking about vulnerable children who are impacted.”
New York State Assembly person Donna Lupardo is the sponsor of the bill to limit the case workers to 15 cases per month. She recently stated: “It is a very daunting task to be responsible for these cases.” Besides her sponsoring this Bill, Ms. Lupardo is the chairwoman of the New York State Assembly’s Committee on Children’s Families. She has also stated publicly: “It’s very hard to recruit, train and retain these workers when it’s such a stressful position… I think if they knew they had a predicable work routine it would address some of the high turnover rate.”
Elliot S. Schissel and his associates are CPS defense lawyers. The goal of the law firm is to keep children safe and protected while living with their families.
