Dozens of Indiana DCS employees could lose their jobs due to restructuring

Indianapolis Star

a day ago

As many as 40 employees of the Indiana Department of Child Services could lose their jobs under a reorganization eliminating three layers of management, which agency leaders said would improve communication and decision-making.
The agency protecting Hoosier children from abuse and neglect announced the changes Friday. They go into effect July 1.
DCS Director Adam Krupp said the layoffs won't put children at risk because 'these are not the folks on the front line.'
Instead, the employees are part of middle and upper management that Krupp is reducing so that family case managers have a more direct line to authority. Between 16 and 40 employees could be laid off, depending on if some accept new lower-paying positions.
'This is going to reduce the opportunity for communication breakdowns and it's going to reduce the delay in decision-making,' he said. 'I very much believe this will improve our outcomes in terms of focusing on child safety and working closely with families, whether it be on the prevention side or the intervention side.'
The behemoth agency has more than 4,040 employees, with almost 1,800 family case managers who handle daily interactions with children and families.
'All Hoosier children deserve a safe place to lay their head at night, and our most vulnerable kids often need an extra layer of security. Things are not working as well as they should at DCS, but we are going to change that,' said Gov. Mike Braun. 'With this entrepreneurial plan, we will remove layers of inefficient middle management and bureaucracy and instead redirect resources to frontline services like foster care and family case workers to keep kids safe.'
It is estimated the state could save between $4 million and $8 million from restructuring – dubbed Project Awaken — but that money could also be redirected to child safety efforts.
Krupp talked with the ICC and went through the nine layers of employees currently in the agency, from him all the way down to family case managers. The reorganization will eliminate a level of assistant deputy directors and several others.
The state will also move from 18 different regions — each with its own manager — to five. The agency said it looked at caseloads, square mileage and staff to help determine the regions, generally aligning with a central region and four quadrants.
He noted that these regions had slowly developed their own microcultures, or 18 different ways of doing things. The streamlining will result in more consistent policies.
'Executive management, right now, we are too far removed from a family case manager, and that's not because of geographical distance. That's simply because of all the layers of communication, information flow and decision-making,' Krupp said.
He added the state will continue to hire family case managers, noting it's a constant cycle of turnover and training.
More: Kids could be sleeping in your local DCS office. Here's how often it happens in Indiana.
'It never really stops,' Krupp said.
He said currently the agency needs between 175 and 195 more family case managers to meet statutory caseload ratios. DCS has long struggled with retention due to the stress of the job and the three months needed for training.
There was a brief move during the General Assembly session to eliminate those caseload rules, but Krupp said that is not a priority. He said lawmakers considered giving the agency more flexibility.
As part of the restructuring, the legal division will also be aligned under the new regions and work more as a co-leader with regional directors. Financial and budgeting efforts have been centralized so that there is more visibility into day-to-day spending. DCS has regularly overspent its appropriation in the state budget.
Krupp added that work toward reorganization started during the transition period after the November election. The agency in May announced new mission, vision and purpose statements and this is the second phase of reorganization.