With eight contempt orders over failure to place children, how many more chances does DCFS director have? Gov. Pritzker won't say
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The mismanagement of children in state care has led to the executive in charge of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services being held in contempt of court eight times since the start of the year.
The most recent contempt order came down on Thursday.
On Friday, CBS 2's Chris Tye asked Gov. JB Pritzker how many more times he will allow such things to happen before change is made.
Marc Smith was appointed acting director of the Illinois DCFS in April 2019 and confirmed officially as director in June of last year. In the last decade, he length a DCFS director stays in that job has averaged less than a year.
It is a revolving door that the governor seems to want to stop. But Cook County Juvenile Court Judge and former Public Guardian Patrick Murphy wants Smith to start taking better care of the state's most vulnerable youth.
"In the 27 years I've been doing this work, I have never seen this happen once - let alone eight times in 11 weeks," said Cook County Chief Deputy Public Guardian Alpa Patel.
The first time DCFS director Mark Smith was held in contempt of court was January. A teenage girl was kept in a psychiatric hospital seven months longer than needed.
Seven more contempt cases have followed just since the start of the year, including four just this month.
Two involved youth in care who have been languishing in psychiatric hospitals long after they were ready to be medically discharged. One of those children is just 11 years old, and has been ready to get out of a psychiatric hospital since last April.
The third involved a 16-year-old boy who has spent more than 375 days – almost the whole time he has been in DCFS custody – in a shelter that does not have the resources to support his needs given his intellectual and cognitive disabilities.
The fourth contempt order came down just on Thursday, over a teenage girl who over the last three months went "through at least 15 placements, which have included "foster homes, shelters, psychiatric hospitalization, and hospital emergency rooms".
For a time, officials said. the girl "resided at the end of a long dark hallway in a windowless room."
Judge Murphy said Smith failed to comply with a court order to get her to an appropriate setting.
Until that is fixed, a $1,000-a-day fine begins next month. Those are state tax dollars - and remember, there were those seven prior cases with fines in some of those too.
So CBS 2's Tye asked Smith's boss, Gov. JB Pritzker: "How many more times can the head of DCFS be held in contempt until we do something more meaningful – perhaps change at the top?" If we see you in a month, will it be time number 12 or time number 15?"
"You're ignoring all of the progress that's been made at DCFS, and so is the decision to hold the department in contempt," Pritzker replied. "The head of Department of Children and family Services, and I, and the judge are frustrated with the challenges that we face for our most vulnerable children."
While Pritzker said he is frustrated, he was not willing to tell us how many more contempt cases he'll allow Smith to rack up.
"It actually minimizes what's really going on here," Patel said. "It's not simply an annoyance we are dealing with. We're talking about these children spending days, if not months, in places that they don't belong."
The DCFS said two of the eight contempt orders were purged. They have appealed or will appeal all remaining cases.
So far, no fines have been paid. In most of these, they say the fines have been stayed.
