NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Weeks after Tennessee lawmakers raised alarms over kids being forced to sleep on the floors in state offices, the State Comptroller’s Office released an audit of the Department of Children’s Services that found “crisis-level” staffing and placement shortages.

Lawmakers called the situation dire in October, and the December audit revealed Tennessee is running the risk of allowing kids in serious danger of abuse to “slip through the cracks” because case workers are shorter staffed and overworked.

The audit, which took place between Aug. 1, 2020, through Aug. 31, 2022, said it found several key issues:

1. DCS did not assess risk or develop controls in “several areas” to fix systematic issues.
2. Case manager turnover and employee vacancies at DCS have reached “crisis levels,” which it believes is risking the safety of vulnerable children.
3. The lack of foster homes has created serious challenges, leading to DCS having to seek temporary placement options in state office buildings and transitional homes for “extended durations.”
4. The audit found “critical child safety incidents” and risks in several department processes, including:
   • Children may have remained in unsafe situations because management did not meet established timelines for child abuse and neglect investigations
   • DCS did not ensure that reported allegations of sexual abuse or lack of supervision for custodial children living in residential facilities were investigated
   • DCS hasn’t developed an effective process to respond to sexual abuse and harassment allegations
   • Shortfalls in management’s Provider Quality Team review process led to the PQT not identifying a questionable provider employee to prevent his contact with children in state custody and avoid child endangerment

The audit noted DCS case manager caseloads have increased by nearly 63% since Aug. 2020 amid “alarming” levels of turnover in the past two years, saying in some cases support services weren’t provided to children. In particular, the audit revealed 97% of new case manager hires left in 2021, meaning DCS was unable to retain the vast majority of its new recruits.

“Given the increasing number of children entering DCS custody, increasing vacancies, and high caseloads, this expectation has set case managers up for failure and only hurts the children when case managers cannot provide children with high-quality support services,” the comptroller’s audit said.