By Sen. Jeff Timberlake

Next week, the work of the 132nd Legislature begins in earnest. We ramp up our committee work, start working on the state budget and try to tackle problems that are affecting Mainers across the state.

As part of that two-year legislative process, we also look at how state agencies are serving Maine’s people. And no agency deserves more scrutiny than Maine’s Office of Child and Family Services

Hello, this is Senator Jeff Timberlake of Androscoggin County. I thank you for joining me for this week’s Republican Radio Address.

From the moment when four children who had involvement with the Office of Child and Family Services died within weeks of each other in the summer of 2021, the Legislature’s Government Oversight Committee, of which I am a member, has been investigating what is arguably the most dysfunctional division of Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services. In fact, more children under the care of Child Protective Services have died in the last four years than in the previous eight years combined.

And much like the Titanic, we soon learned that the Office of Child and Family Services had only hit the tip of the iceberg.

Legislative staff spent countless hours investigating those deaths; and the agency’s frontline workers told us in open committee meetings that our perception of the agency’s dysfunction was quite real. They described the Office of Child and Family Services as a “broken system,” its toxic culture a “war zone,” and – think of the Titanic here – called the agency itself a “sinking ship.”

But it turns out that the iceberg it hit ran much deeper than we even thought. After the dreadful testimony of those frontline workers, resource parents and others, it didn’t take long for the agency’s then-director, Todd Landry, to resign. Installed to replace him was his number two in the department, Bobbi Johnson, herself a 28-veteran of the agency and – as some would argue – an extension of his leadership.

The record number of child deaths happened under their leadership; and it was during their tenure when the toxic culture was allowed to thrive and survive. Yet when it came time to make Ms. Johnson’s appointment permanent, we were promised things would change. The culture would change. Results would change.

Well, we’ve learned in the time since that the Office of Child and Family Services was under a federal audit – the first of its kind, in fact – by the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Federal authorities chose Maine specifically due to the poor results of the agency. We are at the rock bottom nationally.

While past audits by Maine’s own Child Welfare Ombudsman, Christine Alberi, found problems in half of the cases she examined, the problems unearthed by federal regulators were much worse. In all, 94 percent of the random cases reviewed by inspectors failed at least one standard, including at least 59 percent of cases where Office of Child and Family Services caseworkers failed to conduct safety assessments.

What’s worse is this audit was being conducted at the same time as our own investigation and without our knowledge – at no time did the previous DHHS commissioner, the previous Office of Child and Family Services director or Ms. Johnson ever tell us this audit was happening. It’s dishonest at best and obstruction at its worst.

Since then, nearly 150 employees of the department have signed a letter of no confidence in Director Johnson. They’ve basically said that in the year since she was appointed to the top position, nothing has changed under her leadership. But did we really expect it to?

And today we learn that Christine Alberi, who I mentioned earlier is Maine’s Child Welfare Ombudsman, tested another 80 cases in 2024 and found problems in 44 of them. That’s now four years in a row that more than half the cases failed muster.

On a final note, the recent decision by Maine’s Supreme Court that the Legislature is not entitled to confidential DHHS records is both misguided and shortsighted. As the first branch of government closest to the people and responsible for government oversight, we are the check and balance of an administration that has not yet taken responsibility for the failures of the Office of Child and Family Services.

I have submitted a bill to address that and to separate the Office of Child and Family Services from DHHS. The time of waiting for change is over – it’s time we clean up this mess.

Again, I’m Senator Jeff Timberlake of Androscoggin County. I thank you for listening and make sure to follow the Maine Senate Republican page on Facebook, Instagram and X.

Senator Jeff Timberlake represents District 17, which includes communities in Androscoggin and Kennebec counties. He is the Senate Republican Lead on both the Legislature’s Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee and the Government Oversight Committee.