NASHVILLE — Tennessee lawmakers voted Wednesday to put the state’s troubled Department of Children’s Services on a short leash, approving a one-year extension for the agency to get its act together.
Their action follows a new state comptroller audit that contains a dozen critical findings. The list includes the agency’s failure to fully respond to child abuse and neglect allegations, among them cases involving sexual abuse and harassment.
Other issues include overwhelmed and underpaid staffers, many of them new hires, quitting. Also, there remain ongoing problems with the state tracking system for children. The list goes on and spurred a dire warning from Comptroller Jason Mumpower’s auditors.
“The safety, permanency and well-being of Tennessee’s most vulnerable children is in jeopardy,” the team of auditors stated in the report.
(READ MORE: Audit finds Tennessee children in state custody in jeopardy)