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Notes from House Interim Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect, Foster Care, and Adoption Day One - 11/5/03 (Day 2 Notes are Below)
Attendees: Reps. Jennifer Weiss (Co-Chair), Tim Moore (Co-Chair), Bobby Barbee, Jeff Barnhart, Curtis Blackwood, Becky Carney, Debbie Clary, Margaret Dickson, Rick Eddins, Jean Farmer-Butterfield, Beverly Earle, Phillip Frye, Howard Hunter, Maggie Jeffus, Marvin Lucas, Earline Parmon, Jean Preston, Karen Ray, John Rayfield, Deborah Ross, Alex Warner, Ms. Tamara Barranger and Ms. Jennifer Tolle-Whiteside.
The first day began with welcome and opening remarks by the Co-Chairs. Then, Janet Mason, from the UNC School of Government presented an overview of the child abuse, neglect, and dependency law in NC. Her first slide quoted the 2003 NC Child Health Report Card, Were it a communicable disease, child abuse and neglect would be declared an epidemic in NC. [I have a copy of her handout.]
Rep. Curtis Blackwood That Mecklenburg case was a far way from government staying out of families. What do we do about false accusation?
Ms. Mason Confirmed that there is no process to appeal substantiation in the Central Registry in NC law, though bills have been introduced.
Rep. Barnhart Everyone in this room is concerned about child abuse and neglect and we workers should have tools to do their jobs. But, Rep. Blackwood raises a good point about false accusations. I'm worried about the screen-outs.
Rep. Farmer-Butterfield I want to hear about MRS.
Rep. Rayfield What happened in the Stumbo case?
Ms. Mason then explained the Stumbo case.
Next, Tom Vitaglione, Senior Fellow at the NC Child Advocacy Institute and Co-Chair of the NC Child Fatality Task Force presented the details of a child fatality review. But first, he respectively suggested to the Committee that the Speakers appointed them because of an excellent series of articles in the Charlotte Observer and Greensboro News & Record that detailed child abuse homicides.
Mr. Vitaglione I appeal to you. I hope you do as much as you can to focus on how to prevent child abuse homicides. Please don't leave your responsibility without recommending specific items to reduce deaths, child abuse homicides. Overall, the child death rate has decreased due to bicycle helmets, graduated driver license, seat belts. But, the child abuse homicide rate has stayed steady. There has been no progress here. For the last 10 years, every two weeks, an adult kills a child in NC. DSS only knows about 50 percent of these children. You can leave the NC Child Fatality Task Force with your recommendations. We'll be here after you're gone. He then went over the Covenant with NC's Children Recommendations to the Committee, which can be found at their website at: www.nccovenant.org/covenant/recommendations.htm
Mr. Vitaglione then presented the fatality review, while choking back tears. He pointed out that the departments did not have the capability to talk to each other, which technology allows now.
Rep. Ray Bailey lived down the road from her. There were indications to the social worker. It seems like things were ignored. You can pick up a phone.
Mr. Vitaglione It's complex. You can't legislate human behavior.
Rep. Ray There is no excuse for not picking up a phone. You can adhere to the signs and go the extra mile.
Rep. Barnhart Looks to Covenant recommendations. Says he wants more information and cost projections for #1 and #2. For #3, he wants to know information on average time in the job, salary scale and turnover.
Ms. Barranger What do counties have access to now?
Mr. Vitaglione It varies. The most complete system is the NCIC. The counties have to check one county at a time and it is costly. Urges Committee to find out their options and choose one.
Rep. Blackwood Asks for explanation of the death rates. Then says, he can get a criminal background check for $7. (He doesn't explain how.)
Rep. Clary Asks if CPS workers are using the sex offender registry.
JoAnn Lamm, Program Administrator for Family Support and Child Welfare Services Section, State DSS gave a very detailed presentation on child welfare services in NC.
Rep. Ray Are there enough social workers?
Ms. Lamm No.
Rep. Weiss Explains the difference between social worker and case worker. The goal is to hire BSWs and MSWs, but it is not always possible.
Rep. Frye You referred to shared parenting meetings. Do parents know where their children are placed?
Ms. Lamm We are not going to put foster parents at risk, but it is often not an issue.
Rep. Blackwood What happens if the family moves out of state?
Ms. Lamm If they (DSS) know, they call the state and make a referral to continue the investigation. Same with to another county.
Rep. Blackwood Can you change caseworkers?
Ms. Lamm That's a local level decision.
Rep. Weiss What is the real caseload?
Ms. Lamm 1:12 is the recommended ideal. We are not able to achieve 1:12 with vacancies and turnover.
Rep. Dickson Do the salaries vary from county to county?
Ms. Lamm deferred to Larry Johnson, President of the NC Association of County Directors of Social Services/Rockingham County DSS Director to answer.
Mr. Johnson The salaries vary from $21,000 up to $43,000 in the bigger counties.
The next presenter was Susan Osborne, DSS Director from Alamance County.
Ms. Osborne Referring to the fatality review that Tom Vitaglione did, which was in her county, she said the criminal background check was done in their county (Alamance), but not in Orange County. They did not know that the family had lived in Orange County. In order to find this out, they would have had to check all 100 counties. She explained that for every 100 reports to a local DSS child abuse hotline:
Important issues:
Rep. Blackwood Can't you track families through license plates?
Rep. Dickson What is the average length of stay in foster care?
Ms. Lamm 365 380 days.
Rep. Rayfield What about foster parents? He refers to the recent, horrendous case in New Jersey.
Ms. Osborne Foster parents are fingerprinted.
Rep. Ross What about prevention?
Ms. Osborne We have parenting classes, but not all counties have that.
Ms. Tolle-Whiteside Prevent Child Abuse North Carolina is putting together the research.
Rep. Farmer-Butterfield What about the Guardian ad Litem Program? We need to enhance this program.
Rep. Weiss We are not going to hear about GAL in these two days, but we do want to hear from them.
The next presenter was Joe Lansinger, a CPS Supervisor in Johnston County. Mr. Lansinger sent me his testimony, so you can read it, below. Please read it trying to hear the voice of the caring, kind and gentle man who delivered it.
You have heard Ms. Osborne tell you about the challenges we face in doing what is needed to help families and protect children and you have seen what we must do to make that happen. But, there are other kinds of challenges we must face challenges we face personally as Social Workers trying to help these families.
So, what exactly might some of the challenges be in doing a job that should require our constant attention 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, and 365 days a year?
First, we have to find people who are willing to place themselves at risk and in dangerous situations on a daily basis. A few years ago in Johnston County, two Deputy Sheriff's went to a trailer to serve routine papers on a man they knew as Jose Rosado. While at the trailer, one of the Deputies was shot and killed and the other was seriously wounded. That same day, two of my co-workers were on their way out to the same trailer to check on a man they knew as Angel Gueverra and his young son. They just happened to leave 45 minutes after the Deputies. When they later found the little boy, thankfully unharmed, he still had Depute Paul West's dried blood on his T-shirt.
Every day and night in North Carolina, unarmed female Social Workers are sent out alone to go into situations that armed law enforcement officers would rather avoid. They never know who is behind that closed door, or hiding in the closet, or out there waiting in the dark. They never know if this home visit is the home visit that might be their last. Just like we did not know on that day we were on our way to visit a man wanted for several violent felonies in New York state. Can you imagine how that feels?
We have to find people that are willing to work nights and weekends and give up Holidays for work on a regular basis.
We have to find people that are willing to work hundred's of hours of overtime each year. I, myself, have worked over 250 hours of overtime since this past January. This is far from the highest number of overtime hours in my own county.
But, there are rewards. You can have all the cases you want all the timeanywhere in North Carolina. Caseloads have already been discussed several times today. CPS Social Workers often have caseloads in North Carolina that involve 30 or 40 families and are three and four times too high to possibly manage, effectively.
Vacation periods are virtually non-existent---but there is such a high incidence of sick leave from the physical drain that you do tend to get a lot of time off, unexpectedly.
If you survive all of this, you have to battle the ever present emotional stress of doing a job where you are trying to help families constantly in crisis and deal everyday with people that perpetrate the horrors of child abuse on children.
I'm sure that everyone in this room can identify with having a job where someone is always mad at you, attacking you for what you do or don't do, giving you the pleasure everyday of telling you they can do your job better than you if only someone will give them the chance.
If you look at the situation realistically, you realize that the biggest challenge of all may be to simply find CPS workers willing to take the job and to keep the job. Certainly no one does this for the money we get paid. People often move from county to county, increasing turnover, because they are driven by the need for higher salaries. Social Workers come to our county from small counties and, every year, the bigger counties steal away three or four of our trained Social Workers. Since 1998, our county has turned over several entire Children's Services Units two or three times---and we are considered a county that has a high retention rate of CPS workers.
But, whatever the reasons, you are constantly recruiting, hiring, training, re-recruiting, rehiring and retraining CPS Social Workers. Whether it's the terrible hours, the enormous caseloads, or the constant emotional stress, CPS Social Workers burn completely out, on average, in less than two years. CPS is no longer a career position.
One of the ironies that jumps out at me about being a CPS Social Worker as I hear about, and observe, situations around the state is that the young men and women with families---the very people who can most identify with the problems of the families and children we see in CPScan no longer do the job. The long and physically exhausting hours invariably take their toll and one day these family men and women decide they are spending all of their time helping other people to parent, spending all of their time helping other people's children---but they have no time to parent or help---or even get to know----their own children. Then they decide to move on to something else and CPS, once again, becomes more and more a job held only by the very young and inexperienced or the very old.
Of course, there are other aggravations. We all struggle with Court Reports on each case that are longer than term papers, those thousands of required forms that Joann Lamm sends us to fill out, the mountain of paper work and documentation that is required for each ease----that eventually creates a case file the size you need a wheelbarrow to carry.
But, for all the information we are able to gather, it's the information we can't get that causes the most problems. We have too many cases where families seemingly appear out of nowhere and then seemingly disappear to nowhere when they come under CPS scrutiny.
About a year ago, a family with eleven children fled our county to avoid CPS Investigation---following a pattern they had maintained for years in several other counties. We sent out the 100 County Alert and we used every method that we could think of to try to find them and to alert other counties to be aware of their presence. But, there is no standard system in place in North Carolina to provide and exchange information on a county to county basis in such instances. We have to depend on our own initiatives to find answers. We made phone calls, we tried to find the right case manager in another county, we requested information from hospitals, we sent out faxes, we worked with law enforcement and the school systems, we made phone calls trying to follow-up with every lead we had. Our county does get Social Security Numbers and does pull license numbers and does do Employment Security Checkssomething we learned from the SBI several years ago.
We have also felt the frustration many of you feel about our system as we kept banging our heads against the wall trying to find these children. Eventually we were counting on being just plain lucky. We tried for months to find these children but we weren't successful.
Oh, these children were eventually located in another county---after five of them had died in a fire. Now all kinds of information readily available about these children. Too bad it happened after their funerals were being planned.
We support the implementation of a state-wide automated system that allows counties to exchange information. Some counties can now access certain information while some seem to have no capacity to access any information until the morning of the next business day. This problems needs to be corrected.
We do not need to have to do county by county criminal checks---we need to be able to access the National Criminal Investigation Center (NCIC) so that we know immediately the criminal history of all individuals with whom our children are placed and with whom our Social Workers are dealing. We do not need children being placed at risk because we can not get information and we do not want children to be placed unnecessarily in Foster Homes because we can not check out placements in timely manner. We do not need for there to ever by any more Jose Rosado's out there. We never have to place children in harm's way because we can not get access to criminal information that is public information.
This committee would never make a decision that has to be based on inadequate, inaccurate and incomplete information and CPS Social Workers should never have to make that type of decision, either.
We are a one to 300 ratio county in Johnston County. We have one CPS Social Worker available to meet the needs of every 300 children whose well being is investigated by our county. But, as in every county, our DSS is viewed as the sole protector of children. But, DSS can not be the only party responsible for our children's welfare. We need the help of our churches, the assistance of our friends in education and our brothers and sisters in law enforcement, and the commitment of our community partners---and we need your help to successfully protect the children of our state. Tom Vitagione almost cried when he talked about reading an autopsy report on a child but that in no way compares to how horrible it is to actually be present where a young teenage male killed his younger brother, his teenage sister and then took his own life. We need your help to stop this from ever happening again. We need your help to stop needless child deaths. We all need to put aside our differences and realize we have the same goal--protecting our children.
Because of all the extraordinary challenges in CPS, Social Workers who stick with this job are called upon to do extraordinary things each and every day. You may not know us but that is not important. Most days you probably are not even aware we exist but that doesn't matter, either. What does matter is that we are always going to be out there doing whatever it takes, whenever and wherever it is needed, to protect the children of our state.
Ladies and gentlemen, the last thing Karen George said to me Tuesday night before I hung up the phone was, Joe, go home and get plenty of sleep. You have something very important to do tomorrow.
This morning at 2:00 AM when the phone rang at my home, I had a decision to make. I decided that there was no way to explain that I had something so important to do today that I could not personally respond to a call where a 3 week old baby needed help.
Now it is your turn to make the same type of decision. It is your turn to answer a much larger call. A call to do whatever is necessary to help the families and protect the children of North Carolina.
Rep. Hunter Currently, we do criminal background checks for day care --children and adults. It does not require additional staff. DSS needs help. It's going to cost some more money. If we are serious, we can't put a band-aid on this and think we've fixed it and walk away. These people are stressed out. The caseloads are ridiculous. They are begging us. Think about the plight of these people who are protecting what we say is so important to us. I've seen children die. And, it's sickening. We have the power to stop it, if we got the guts to do it. We can't do it for nothing.
Rep. Weiss In the Child Health Report Card, we got an A in vaccinations. When we put money to a problem, we get results.
Susan Morgan, from Fiscal Research, presented a list, Budgetary Actions of the General Assembly Services for Children, from FY 1997-2003.
Rep. Ray What about Smart Start?
Rep. Rayfield Which is Federal money and county money?
Ms. Morgan I admit that we have been creative with TANF payments.
Rep. Ross I want the whole picture state, Federal, and county expenses and the comparison with other states. How much do we spend per family and the regional differences?
Ms. Tolle-Whiteside There are several things missing from this document, including Intensive Home Visiting Programs and the NC Child Fatality Task Force. More at Four why is that included? There is no child welfare expenditure in that program.
Rep. Blackwood What are the most effective and the least effective programs?
Ms. Morgan I push the need for data. For example, the Intensive Family Preservation Program has no longitudinal good past 6 months.
Rep. Barnhart I want foster care information. I want foster parents to have what they need. It is really frustrating when we take these children from their homes and then something goes wrong in a foster care setting.
Rep. Ray I want to see the mission statement for Smart Start.
Rep. Weiss What about the Child Fatality Task Force?
Ms. Morgan DHHS says that they are providing the staff for this program.
Ms. Tolle-Whiteside (who is the co-chair of the Task Force) No. That is not correct. The Department is providing only minimal clerical assistance.
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Notes from House Interim Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect, Foster Care, and Adoption Day Two - 11/6/03
Attendees: Reps. Jennifer Weiss (Co-Chair), Tim Moore (Co-Chair), Bobby Barbee, Jeff Barnhart, Curtis Blackwood, Becky Carney, Debbie Clary, Margaret Dickson, Rick Eddins, Jean Farmer-Butterfield, Phillip Frye, Howard Hunter, Maggie Jeffus, David Lewis, Marvin Lucas, Earline Parmon, Jean Preston, Karen Ray, John Rayfield, Deborah Ross, Alex Warner, Ms. Tamara Barranger and Ms. Jennifer Tolle-Whiteside.
JoAnn Lamm - Things that come up time and again in child fatality reviews are the automated child welfare information system and access to criminal background checks. In order to do what you said we have to do, please help us. Here is what we need.
Rep. Parmon Refers to an article in Winston-Salem Journal about social services getting a database. How is this different?
Ms. Lamm I don't know.
Rep. Rayfield - How do these families fall off radar? Can't we check driver's licenses, social Security numbers?
Ms. Lamm An automated system would be better, and then we wouldn't have to send out a 100-county alert.
Rep. Rayfield - What if a family doesn't want to be located?
Ms. Lamm - Gave some other examples. Repeated that access to other systems would be a big help.
Ms. Barranger - With your negotiations with AOC, does that mean that this Committee does not have to be concerned with criminal background checks?
Ms. Lamm We are working on a contractual arrangement so that all of fees could be waived.
Rep. Eddins Refers to something in DOC. There are lots of systems in this state - if an officer stops someone, they can check several systems. He requests that staff update this Committee on these systems.
Rep. Hunter - Background checks, an inter-county thing would solve the biggest part of your problem. What about new people moving into state? What is the cost of providing criminal background checks to childcare, and the other systems that have access? Some of this is because of what the Feds are telling us to do. Also, it brings up the consistency piece for 100 counties.
Ms. Lamm We try to be consistent. But, the state does not the have capacity to provide this information statewide.
Rep. Barnhart We need to know if there are federal barriers to getting background checks.
Ms. Lamm - Law enforcement needs to get FBI data. We don't have a process nationally to get information from other states. My emergency may not be their emergency, and vice versa. We need an interstate compact.
Rep. Barnhart - Are there any federal laws for within our own state?
Rep. Moore Explains that a later meeting, they will have an expert to explain this.
Rep. Barnhart - Why was this not a major piece of our budget deliberations?
Rep. Ross - AOC took one of the biggest cuts in the JPS area. We cannot keep cutting the court system and expect them to keep doing all this. It's one more burden on AOC, when they're taking enormous budget cuts.
Rep. Blackwood - I was school principal. When a family moved, we would just make a copy of the school record and send it on to the next school.
Ms. Lamm - If we can't locate families, we are doing that.
Rep. Blackwood- Do they not type this stuff up on a computer?
Ms. Lamm - They do.
Rep. Blackwood - All they have to do is hook up the computers.
Rep. Lucas - As we develop an intra-state system, it would behoove us to make it inter-state compatible.
Rep. Eddins I share your frustration. We've been working on this for a year [in IT Committee]. There are a lot of rural areas that don't even have computers. This is a big cost. The question is how to link these together so you don't duplicate cost. Very few states have a statewide system.
Rep. Warner There are big problems linking turfs, i.e., county and state. But, we can track the school system. Just link to the board of education. There should be an effort to communicate within local systems.
Marjorie Menestres, Executive Director of SAFEchild, a Wake County child abuse prevention agency presented to the committee. She said the good news is that child abuse can be prevented. She talked about the mission, objectives, goals, and programs of SAFEchild.
Rep. Farmer-Butterfield Are there other programs like this across the state?
Ms. Menestres - There are, but not enough. Suggested they ask Committee member, Jennifer Tolle-Whiteside.
Ms. Tolle-Whiteside Prevent Child Abuse North Carolina has 33 affiliates in 37 counties. SAFEchild is one of these affiliates. They differ in communities across the state.
Rep. Farmer-Butterfield What is the budget for these programs?
Ms. Menestres - $50,000 - $70,000 per program. Staff and taxi service, to get participants to the program, is biggest line item. SAFEchild's overall budget is $700,000.
Evelyn Williams, Director of the NC Child Welfare Education Collaborative gave a presentation. [I have a handout of the slides in her powerpoint presentation if anyone wants a copy.] She also brought 3 former students in the collaborative who sat in the front row and then were asked to speak by Rep. Deborah Ross.
Rep. Ross - These are our future leaders. I would like to hear them speak to leadership training opportunities.
Rep. Weiss (to Larry Johnson, President of the NC Association of County Directors of Social Services) How helpful are the graduates in your agency?
Larry Johnson, DSS Director, Rockingham County - My intern is covering for me at a meeting today, so I can be here. I don't have to train them; they come ready to go to work. Two of them are finishing up their commitment, but they are staying.
Earl Marett, DSS Director, Johnston County It takes 7 months to fill a vacancy. The Child Welfare Collaborative student just goes to work immediately. It make kids lives safer.
Rep. Moore Wants the Committee to be driven by members. As such, he goes around the room and asks each Member to say what they want from the Committee.
Rep. Barbee Asks Ms. Lamm if she has data on young girls having children and then their boyfriends abusing them.
Ms. Lamm I have data on that.
Rep. Barbee Says that church volunteer grandparents can help solve these problems because DSS can't do it all by themselves. Tells the story of an 8-year-old child mashing the button at his door. DSS told he and his wife that they could not adopt her, but they kept a close watch on her. She went to college and now is married and has children of her own. If we can just talk this up in community.
Rep. Barnhart We need to focus on criminal background checks and a statewide system. Is funding an issue? Two other issues. Retention/pay/turnover/training. For every 100 calls to DSS, 60 are looked into and 20 are substantiated. If you call in a fire and it isn't true, we're taking a valuable resource. If it is a domestic situation or a custody battle, we need to penalize false reports. The Constitution says you have a right to know your accuser. Then he told of a particular story in his county.
Rep. Blackwood We need a clarification that to go to court, it cannot be just an insinuation. I have a constituent accused of raping his stepchild and this was just to jockey for position in a custody case. We need to protect people who honestly believe there is something wrong. Background checks might be covered. We need to know. Communication between various counties. Why can't they just use the Internet?
Rep. Carney - I didn't think we'd get all we needed to know in 2 days. I want to hear from people in the back of the room [referring to audience]. The Child Fatality Task Force was defunded in the last budget. We're here because of a series of newspaper articles. We have a lot of work to do. We have a great responsibility to these children from this state. I don't have any specifics. Clearly, information technology is a problem. And, collaboration between communities and at the state level.
Rep. Farmer-Butterfield I want to hear more about criminal background checks and case management and the social worker issues. I want to know what is happening in other states and what are the costs. Prevention; I want to hear more about that. Then, I think we need to prioritize just a few issues.
Rep. Frye We need to share information statewide. I agree with Rep. Barnhart. We need well-trained and educated investigators. That first contact is so important.
Rep. Warner We need to establish links between agencies. It would be simple legislation to have our schools just share their information. I am retired with 32 years in education. With nurses, teaching fellows when we found shortages and made investments, we fixed it. We need to do the same thing for social workers.
Rep. Ross I agree with everything said so far. Clearly, there are certain advantages of local control, and there are some disadvantages. It's the same things as with low-wealth schools. Not every county has SAFEchild and an affluent Junior League to pay for it. We need to figure out programs for prevention and intervention and subsidize it around the state.
Rep. Rayfield I have a lot of questions. I'm concerned that we'll be involved with so many issues that we won't do anything. We need to identify one or two issues and do that. There is abuse, confidentiality, parents have rights, right of child, professionals dedicated to correct procedures who work under adverse conditions. We need to focus on what we can do and what we can accomplish. There are legal and financial issues. We need to make sure that the ladies and gentlemen sitting in the back have the tools they need to do their jobs.
Rep. Moore Assures the Committee that both Speakers support this Committee and have promised that any legislation coming from it will get a fair hearing.
Rep. Preston - Recruitment and retention of social workers. Are there available slots in universities? What about the salaries? What effort has been made by DSS to work with the Office of State Personnel to increase salaries? We did that for teachers and now, they are above the national average. We need to have the same effort for social workers.
Mr. Marett When we did a survey of why it is difficult to recruit and retain CPS workers, the salary is up there as a reason, but time with their own family is the biggest concern.
Ms. Williams The students are there; the interest is there; the funding is not there. We could double our enrollment with the existing schools and have more students with new schools.
Rep. Lucas I am overwhelmed with the seriousness of child abuse. It's like fishing. We only notice those that get caught. We need to generate publicity to make society be vigilant.
Ms. Barranger Explains that she had no pre-conceived notions of what this Committee should study. She and her husband are licensed teaching foster parents and they have adopted 3 foster children. She is honored to be here. She is passionate about these issues.
Ms. Tolle-Whiteside We have heard clearly what folks need to do their job. Many of the parents in the system now were in system as children. This is a cycle. Child abuse is not a new issue. We have studied this issue for years. It is extremely complex. We need to focus on prevention or we will continue to see these families. The majority of those children who are killed are under 3.
Rep. Jeffus Information technology, background checks. This Committee has lots of charges and they're all going to cost money. The caseload is enormous. Foster care parents are in short supply, especially for special needs children, and they are not reimbursed enough. This MRS, what I've heard, I like. It would be good to hear from the pilot programs. But, again, all of this will require some funding. We have to come up with proposals and we as a group will support. We have cut services and cut services, and then expect more programs.
Rep. Lewis I sincerely appreciate the work of the people in field. I don't have the answers or the background to add to how to improve the system. One of the concerns I have is that so many kids fall through the cracks because the General Assembly creates such a patchwork of funding. My question is, how can I get the resources out in the field where it is needed.
Rep. Ray I agree. These were budget items in 2002 and there were cuts in all the areas. Then, there was a $28 million expansion for More at Four. [Holds up copy of Charlotte Observer article with pictures of murdered children] This is a sheet of dead kids that never got to More at Four. Smart Start is in there too. Am I missing something? There are millions and millions of dollars in some areas. The process does not make sense to me. Are agencies working together or is there a firewall between agencies?
Tony Solari, Director of Public Policy, NC Partnership for Children The mission of Smart Start falls under this Committee. The General Assembly has made it very clear, however, that we are not to duplicate services. Offers to provide staff with any information they need about Smart Start.
Rep. Clary - Tom Vitaglione said it well yesterday when he said that we have a very daunting task. There is a very wide spread of what needs to be addressed. We need to focus on a couple of areas where we can make a difference -- and by next summer. We'll lose them all if we have 10 or12 items that everybody throws on the table. We need to focus.
Rep. Eddins I agree with Rep. Clary. Let's focus.
Rep. Weiss - Thanks everybody for participation. We will try to narrow our focus. The Chairs will gather more information.
Rep. Moore We will be meeting again in the second week of January. There may be a series of meetings after that. There is no schedule yet. Please keep the week of January 12 open. Between now and then, the staff will be busy with redistricting. Our report is due in April.
