Miami child-welfare caseworkers, battered by constant threats and ''intimidation'' from bosses to work quickly, closed abuse reports without ever ensuring children were safe, a report from Florida's chief inspector general released Friday concludes.
The report portrayed abuse investigators in Miami as a harried bunch who were constantly browbeaten by local agency heads to adhere to often meaningless standards and then ''ridiculed'' when they failed to measure up. Workers were ranked on a ''leaderboard'' and punished when they fell behind, the report said.
One high-ranking Department of Children & Families administrator described the leadership style of the then-top Miami child welfare chief as management ''by data'' -- and the report suggests that the constant performance measurements had become utterly divorced from the agency's primary mission: the protection of children.
The inspector general's report, which took six months to complete after a whistle-blower complained, included a review of 64 abuse and neglect cases that were closed either for lack of DCF ''jurisdiction'' or as duplicates of other complaints to DCF's abuse hot-line. It concluded 54 of the cases had been closed improperly.
The closures, the report said, often were a pretext designed instead to allow workers to move more quickly to other cases.
The inspector general recommended the agency launch a new investigation statewide to determine whether such shortcuts are being used across the state and to ``ensure that no children have been left at risk.''
None of the employees faulted in the report have been disciplined, nor are such actions immediately ''contemplated,'' said Alan Abramowitz, DCF's top administrator in Miami, who said he would review the report fully this weekend.
WORKERS NOT BLAMED
DCF Deputy Secretary George Sheldon said the practices were indicative of a pervasive agency-wide culture, nurtured before Secretary Bob Butterworth took over, that emphasized measurements over results.
''It emanated from Tallahassee,'' Sheldon said. ''I can't blame the caseworkers.'' He added: ``The most important thing we can do in this department is change the culture. . . Regrettably, I think the culture was driven by previous leadership.''
The whistle-blower, who is not identified, took issue with several of the report's conclusions in a letter released by the governor's office. In the letter, the whistle-blower was particularly concerned that several administrators could not explain why they closed many cases improperly, answering ''I don't know'' when questioned.
''We are talking about adults with years of experience,'' the whistle-blower wrote. ``If they did not know the job, why are they in these positions? How many children have endured continuous abuse due to their negligent and fraudulent conduct?''
The whistle-blower called ''perjury'' the claim by several supervisors implicated in the case that they had never been trained in the proper way to close cases.
According to the report, one long-time child abuse investigator, Rose Lesniak, told the inspector general that ``employees receive no credit for conducting a good investigation; rather they hear only negative comments from management, including the prospect of losing their jobs, if they do not meet the performance measures.''
Renee Y. Morelli, who supervised child-abuse investigators in South Miami, said the leadership style created an atmosphere where ``staff were closing cases in ways that were either border-line or distinctly inappropriate, partly to prevent disciplinary action.''
Another supervisor, Moses M. Linen, told the inspector general the constant pressure encouraged investigators to ''defraud and falsify'' agency records.
And another supervisor, Lee A. Humphrey of downtown Miami, said morale among abuse investigators had ''dropped to zero'' after months of threats that they would be fired for failing to meet arbitrary standards.
LEADERBOARD CRAZE
The shortcuts, the whistle-blower alleged, were encouraged by the highest-ranking managers in DCF's Miami administration, including Jackye L. Russell, district operations administrator at the time. Russell, who resigned in October, acknowledged that statistics were important to her because Miami ``was usually the lowest on the statewide performance leaderboard.''
She denied ''giving instructions to anyone, verbally or in writing, to close cases in any manner in order to manipulate'' statistics, the report said. The report concluded there was insufficient evidence to show the chief encouraged shortcuts.
Program Administrator Alejandro Villibord, who was at the center of the controversy, also denied directing subordinates to close abuse cases improperly.
Though he was the highest-ranking child welfare administrator in Miami, Villibord told the inspector general that he ''was not even aware'' that cases could be closed for lack of jurisdiction or ``the affect that doing so had on the leaderboard.''
''It was suggested that Mr. Villibord's intimidation of employees to constantly perform may have led to the subsequent improper case closures,'' the report added.
The report concluded there was not sufficient evidence to conclude Villibord explicitly urged staff to cut corners, but said he ``placed pressure on staff to meet performance measures.''
''Family safety, and the safety of children, is paramount,'' Villibord told The Miami Herald Friday night.
The report decried another practice that had become common among investigators: failing to visit a child suspected to be the victim of abuse or neglect quickly if someone close to the child is a ''professional,'' such as a teacher or therapist -- even if the professional is the child's parent.
