Tennessee DCS Slides By Again In Sunset Hearing, Disgraced Clover Bottom Compound Will Now House TN Kids

Image Credit: capitol.tn.gov

The Tennessee Conservative Staff –

For those familiar with the tortuous history of the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services, the June 21 sunset hearing before the Joint Government Operations committee sounded more like Groundhog Day than a trumpet of success since the last disastrous report from December 2022.

Flashback for a moment to earlier this year, The Tennessee Conservative published articles on January 3, 2023 and January 4, 2023.   These articles summarized the latest rhetoric of Commissioner Quin when she admitted, “The State makes a poor parent” and documented the history of failures with DCS since its inception.

At the December 14, 2022 hearing, DCS Commissioner Margie Quin asked for more money, a lot more money, making her request for an additional $196 million a historic increase over the already billion dollars a year taxpayers pay to house and manage the 9,000 kids in state’s custody or $111,111 per child.  

The hearing on June 21st was a sunset hearing.  For political novices, that means that all commissions and agencies created by the Tennessee General Assembly must have “sunset” provisions, or closure dates, unless the General Assembly reauthorizes its existence.  The theory, of course, is to cull out unnecessary and ineffective government operations that merely clog up the government’s proper functioning of serving its constituents, and save tax dollars. 

DCS has faced sunset hearings before.  Former Rep. John DeBerry (D-Memphis) had both fought to abolish and to defend DCS in the face of repeated public criticism.  In 2012, then-Commissioner O’Day was faced with statistics that showed the DCS failed to follow up with investigations, and 31 children had died even though DCS had been called. DeBerry defended the commissioner, but by 2018, Rep. Deberry sought to sunset DCS in its entirety, but withdrew the bill before it was considered by committee.  

Wednesday’s hearing was more about process, payrolls, and case loads than outcomes for children and families.  Quinn discussed how the increase in case worker starting salaries to $50,000 had led to a hiring spree reducing the case worker vacancies.  The number of reported vacancies in September 2022 of 620 has now decreased to 388 with more trainees in process.  

DCS also took an active role in creating a state coordinator for PREA (Prison Rape Elimination Act) investigations for sexual harrassment and assaults that occur while children are in state’s custody.  Quin admitted that DCS had not properly investigated complaints made by children in care who were sexually assaulted or harassed.  Although, this is an important positive step, it is woeful that the passage of this federal law in 2003 is only now being taken seriously by DCS.  Any data on how many children were possibly subjected to sexual abuse under the watchful eye of the State was missing.   And no one asked.  

Quinn also boasted that DCS now had two new sources for housing children that were unavailable before.  First, DCS will be institutionalizing children in the three regional DIDD (Dept. of Developmental Disabilities) homes which are no longer housing adults.  Second, DCS will also be converting the abandoned compound at Clover Bottom to a youth facility.  Clover Bottom was closed in 2015 after a long history of abuses investigated by the U.S. Dept. of Justice, and a 20-year federal lawsuit.  Commissioner Quin told the legislators that the “kids are loving” these facilities.  

This year Tennessee officially shifted its mission from family reunification to “Children First!”, stating that every decision would be made for the “best interest of the children.”  It is hard to tell how parents’ rights in Tennessee square up with this aggressive government overreach, especially since Tennessee legislators supported parental rights in medical decision-making to counteract the “mature minor doctrine.” 

Two citizens showed up for the public hearing to make comments about real experiences with DCS:  Connie Reguli of Brentwood and Nakesha Moore of Nashville.  Reguli, who has served dozens of families as their attorneys, expressed that the committee had still ignored the overaggressive culture of DCS and the State’s failure to implement the federal Family First Act.  Moore told the committee that after fighting for her child for nine years, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled in May that the termination of her parental rights was reversed but DCS refused to return her son to her.  

Committee Chair Carr stopped Reguli mid-sentence after three minutes and refused to allow Reguli a reasonable time to address specific comments made by the Commissioner.  No questions were asked of either Reguli or Moore.  

Reguli provided her unspoken comments to The Tennessee Conservative for this report:

First, the institutionalization of humans has never worked out for democratic society.  Building more places to store children and monetize them with tax dollars will never be the answer.  Reguli’s Family Forward network works to restore family connections when faced with forced government separation and forced adoption. 

Reguli also complains that the culture of DCS will continue to suffer so long as the employees see themselves as employees of the “state” instead of public servants to the taxpayer. 

Commission Quin boasted that the State of Tennessee has always been a good employer and as a State employee of 22 years, she was the poster-child.  “DCS feels no accountability to the citizens and families of this State,” Reguli says.  So long as they serve the master of government, they will never serve families. 

And finally, Reguli says that Quin deliberately misled the committee by saying, “DCS never puts kids in custody, the courts put kids in custody.”  To legislators that do not know how the system works, it sounds like DCS is the innocent bystander to the ever increasing problem of housing foster children.  “No,” says Reguli, “Every child is removed from their family because DCS initiates a petition, often in secret and on hearsay allegations of abuse ASKING to put kids in custody, and the juvenile judges endorse those requests – no questions asked.”

Voters should contact committee members and demand that citizens be heard, especially those that are brave enough and intelligent enough to help educate them on the frailties of a process that can have long lasting effects on children and families. 

So what where the results of the committee hearing? Nothing. Just waiting on more reports from DCS.

Present at the committee hearing were: Rep. John Ragan (R-Oak Ridge); Chair Rep. Dale Carr (R-Sevierville); Rep. Sabi Kumar (R-Robertson); Rep. Mary Littleton (R-Dickson); Rep. Iris Rudder (R-Winchester); Sen. Ed Jackson (R-Jackson); Sen. Sarah Kyle (D-Memphis); Sen. Adam Lowe (R-Calhoun); Sen. Kerry Roberts (R-Springfield).