Linda Spears

As other state agencies experience cuts, Department of Children and Families Commissioner Linda Spears says an increased budget for DCF would allow her staff to continue much needed infrastructure improvements.

At a state budget hearing in Springfield, Mass., she told lawmakers, “We think this will enable us to do quite a bit towards what we need to have done. To make policies clear, to make training stronger, to make practice a higher quality.”

Most critically, to meet the goal of no more than 18 children per caseworker. Spears says the DCF is not there yet, especially in Central and Western Mass.

Is a 3.4 percent funding increase enough? State Senator Ben Downing says it’s a good start.

“The direction [DCF] is headed is where we’d like it to be, but certainly we’ve go more work to do,” Downing says.

DCF funding has increased in recent years, following the deaths of several children under its care.

Incoming Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker named a Washington-based child advocate to head the state’s embattled child welfare agency. Its last commissioner, Olga Roche, resigned after the deaths of children under its watch.

Linda Spears used to work for the state’s Department of Children and Families. And her organization was hired last year by the Patrick administration to lead a probe into the agency, after the disappearance of 5-year-old Jeremiah Oliver. The review found that DCF was understaffed and its policies were out of date.

But Spears, at a press conference last May, said DCF could not have prevented the boy’s death.

“There is, however, significant evidence that DCF staff did not do it’s job in the Oliver case,” she said. “There is not evidence that DCF’s actions caused Jeremiah’s death.”

DCF got an infusion of cash, and new social workers, but Spears inherits a department still struggling with high caseloads and a poor reputation.

Mass. DCF Commissioner Highlights Plans For Increased State Funding

Baker Names Washington-Based Child Advocate To Lead Troubled State Agency