I have a great disdain for the child welfare system in Alabama known as the Department of Human Resources. If I were Governor and it were up to me, every last person employed by DHR in the State of Alabama would wake up in the unemployment line the day I took office! While I truly believe the system is necessary to protect the welfare of children across the state, they system as a whole is a broken spoked wheel in dire need of a revamp.
What got me started on this tirade today is an article in the Tuscaloosa News about how some DHR workers leave the system only to come back at higher pay as consultants. Talk about a waste of money and resources! Here are some excerpts from that article:
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One consultant, Belyn Chambliss, retired in 1999 after 25 years at DHR. She returned to the agency as a consultant charging more than twice what she made as a state employee, the newspaper reported.
Chambliss spent three years working under a computer contract until she left her $80-an-hour consulting job at DHR in 2003 to get back on the state payroll.
Months later, Chambliss became DHR’s deputy commissioner, overseeing state contracts given to consultants, including her husband and others, state records show. |
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DHR has spent more than $20 million since 2003 on computer consultants, with dozens receiving between $50 and $85 an hour, The News reported, and not all the jobs are highly technical computer positions. Some of the former state workers are paid from the computer contracts to handle financial and administrative jobs in the agency, records show. |
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Judith Bernier, a 22-year DHR employee, retired in 1997 making about $28 an hour to take a consulting job with the agency, state records show. She joined SCB Technology as a DHR consultant in 1999 and the company bills $70 an hour for her contract work as a federal program specialist. Bernier is married to Tom Bernier, DHR’s director of child support. |
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Sandra Porter earned about $16.65 an hour working for DHR when she retired after 29 years in 1998, state records show. She joined SCB Technology in May 2000 and the company gets $45 an hour for her work as an asset management specialist. |
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Other former DHR workers who became consultants with SCB include:
-- Ron Marks, who left making about $28 an hour after 21 years with the state; the state paid $68 an hour for his work as a federal program specialist until he left in October.
-- Pamela Burkett, who left making $33.30 an hour after 21 years with the state; the company bills the state $75 an hour for her work as a federal program specialist.
-- Jill C. Manly, who left making $19.75 an hour after 26 years with the state; the state now pays $60 an hour for her work as a functional analyst. |
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The problem here is we've apparently got a "good ole boy" system in place in DHR, lining the pockets of some favorites here! The jobs of these "consultants" is not a technical job, but one designed moreso as a babysitting job. These highly paid people are contracted solely for the puropse of being on hand to explain federal policies to the computer gurus who administrate DHR's computer system while others are performing job functions which should be otherwise performed by state employees at a lower wage.
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The News reported, and not all the jobs are highly technical computer positions. Some of the former state workers are paid from the computer contracts to handle financial and administrative jobs in the agency, records show. |
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The specialists hired as consultants are not required to have computer expertise, according to the job descriptions. Those jobs typically involve explaining federal program issues to programmers or other technical consultants, and using computer systems created by technical consultants to ensure they’re user-friendly for state workers. |
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This is not even the tip of the iceberg here. Every state in the nation has been under a federal mandate for years to implement a centralized computer system for child welfare.
Alabama has spent $60 million dollars in the last 10 years and apparently has very little to show for the money. This has prompted and inquiry by federal officials into where the money's gone and why nothing to show for it.
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One of the agency’s computer projects handled by the company’s consultants is under review by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, according to a notice sent to DHR by the federal agency. Federal officials want to know why DHR has spent $60 million over the past decade on a new statewide child welfare information system with little progress to show for it. |
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The only thing I can give credit to Alabama DHR for is the implementation of a centralized child support payment system. Now, court ordered and collected child support payments go through Montgoomery, not the county courthouses. This system should make it a lot easier to catch the deadbeat dads who otherwise slipped through the cracks and have failed to live up to their obligations. Now, state officials will be tracking the child support payments in Montgomery, not in 67 different county courthouses, some with spotty reporting records. The other advantage to this system is the parents who pay their child support as ordered have one centralized place to send a check to that has all payment and disbursement records at it's fingertips.
The DHR system in Alabama is nothing but a mindless boondoggle wasting taxpayer money that could otherwise be better spent protecting the needy children of this state. Here's where Governor Riley needs to lop off some more wasteful spending!
NO! Wait! This agency would be better served by being completely dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up! Look at the figures quoted by the newspaper! A blind man could see this agency is bleeding state coffers dry!
Who suffers in all of this? The children the system was designed to protect and the taxpayers of Alabama footing the bill for it!
Link to the full article:
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/apps/p...502210333/1007
