Legislation enacted in 2026 that provided for centralized intake of child protective services cases and authorized the Commissioner of Social Services to create and enforce corrective action plans for struggling departments of social services also directed the Secretary of Health and Human Resources to convene a Social Services Task Force to develop a comprehensive improvement plan for the social services system. As part of its statutory directive, the Task Force will review the administration of benefit programs, including ways to improve the user experience for benefit recipients, and consider improvements to benefits eligibility and administration to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and modernize the current application system. The same legislation required the Department of Social Services to hire a third party to review the current funding sources for child welfare and child protective services, benefits, and administration, to include the local match and the methodology used to allocate administrative funds. A report with the Task Force’s recommendations, as well as a plan to enact these recommendations, is due by November 1.
VACo was asked to participate in the Task Force, which held its first meeting on August 24. At the meeting, Boston Consulting Group, which was contracted to support the Task Force, presented initial findings and opportunities for system improvements, based on several weeks’ worth of interviews with stakeholders; a survey of local departments of social services will be sent out this week. Based on these initial findings, the consultants highlighted several key strengths of the system, including dedicated, mission-driven staff; efforts to improve training and provide support to local departments; and strong outcome measures in certain areas, including a low payment error rate in Medicaid. Challenges identified by the consultants included staffing shortages and high turnover in local departments and in key state positions; shortcomings in the IT systems used by local workers that make the systems hard to use for workers and clients; and a funding allocation model that has not been updated in many years. Several participants pointed out the large local funding contribution to local departments of social services, including the use of local funds to draw down federal dollars directly (“pass-through” funding). The consultants plan to present findings on the state’s methodology of allocating administrative funds to local departments at a future meeting.
Several opportunities identified by the consultants to improve the social services system include:
- Making better use of federal funds for expenditures that are eligible for federal reimbursement
- Enhancing use of technology, to include improvements to the client experience and automation of manual tasks within local departments
- Mandating certain minimum training for local workers prior to carrying caseloads
- Improving the flow of information between the state Department of Social Services and local departments
The Task Force’s next meeting is scheduled for September 8.
VACo Contact: Katie Boyle