Massachusetts lawmakers have approved a $36.5 billion state budget. The house and senate signed off on the compromise spending plan today Monday. The budget includes $39 million in additional funding for the Department of Children and Families, which has been under scrutiny for dangerous lapses in oversight. Democratic Representative Brian Dempsey is the house chair of the Ways and Means Committee. He says the increased funding is designed, in part, to take some of the burden off case workers.

“We move towards a 15 to 1 case-to-case worker ratio,” Dempsey says. “We embrace many of the policies that were adopted when we debated the house budget, ranging from finger printing of foster parents to providing licensed medical professionals for screening within 72-hours.”

But Republican Marc Lombardo says spending more money isn’t going to fix all of the problems at state agencies like DCF.

“But the lack of reforms and change in leaderships and oversight leaves little confidence that we will not soon again see more scandal and more cost to the taxpayers,” Lombardo says.

The budget is now on the desk of Governor Deval Patrick, who has up to 10 days to review it, and make any vetoes to the plan.