Cuts and consequences In contrast to the image of a bloated workforce, some state departments have too few workers to do their jobs — placing the public at a potential risk BY BRIAN C. JONES

THE NEXT TIME you eat at a restaurant, try not to think about the important person who’s missing from the kitchen.

When it comes to annually examining 8000 food-serving establishments, to ensure that food is handled property and curb sometimes-fatal food poisoning, the state has only 12 food safety inspectors. Because there are so few, thousands of Rhode Island restaurants go uninspected by the state Department of Health each year. Even worse, the department says it may be unaware of as many as 2000 additional food-serving businesses.

If that thought sends you running, consider this: Once on the street, you may bump into one of the 20,000 ex-convicts in Rhode Island who are on probation or parole. The state’s top corrections official says he worries about the public’s safety since there are only 70 state probation officers to keep tabs on these former inmates.

Should you decide to stay in the restaurant, get food poisoning, and make it to one of the state’s 14 hospitals, your troubles aren’t necessarily over. Each year, the health department inspects only one of these hospitals, meaning that it takes 14 years for inspectors to get around to all of the facilities — even though state law requires annual checkups.

The common theme in these situations: there are too few state workers to do the job required by state law and that the public expects state government to do.

It’s true at the state Department of Human Services, where the goal of welfare reform — getting recipients into paying jobs — may be hampered by a lack of social workers. It’s the case at the Department of Children, Youth, and Families, where workers responding to child abuse work at double-capacity; at the Department of Transportation, which is planning to hire outside contractors to supplement the small, but vital unit that inspects highway bridges; and again at the health department, which may have to skip one-third of the required inspections of assisted living facilities for the elderly this year.

The shortage of workers in vital areas of state government is contrary to the common image of the public workforce: a mammoth, oversized collection of indifferent workers, collectively leaning on their shovels in unnecessary jobs, draining the resources of hard-working taxpayers.

But a review of state departments by the Phoenix found widespread cases of short-staffing. In some instances, it means vital work is not done. In others, it means the work is being done on overtime, sometimes by tired workers putting in back-to-back shifts. Some of those working in the most-stressed areas of state government — frontline employees as well as managers — believe disaster lurks around the corner, simply because there aren’t enough people to do the required work, and that when trouble does happen, they’ll be the scapegoats.

That there could be too few workers in critical areas should not be so surprising.

Over the past 13 years, the state’s workforce has shrunk by more than 3800 workers, from 19,146 "full-time equivalent" employees in 1990 to about 15,289. That’s a reduction of 20 percent. Further, hiring cutbacks in recent years have left hundreds of the remaining jobs vacant. Still, some experts — even if they agree that some areas are understaffed — don’t think the answer is necessarily to boost the overall size of the workforce. Instead, like Jan H. Reitsma, director of the state Department of Environmental Management, they argue that the size of government may be right, but that some workers aren’t in the correct place and need to be transferred.

"I would not agree with the broad statement that state government doesn’t have enough staff or people to get the job done," Reitsma says. "There may be areas were we are hurting, but the questions is, why? Sometimes you have enough people overall, but you do not have the ability to put the workers where they are most needed."

But the contrary argument cites the nightmare of the Station nightclub fire in February, which left 100 people dead and hundreds more injured. One of the questions in the fire’s aftermath was whether local or state fire prevention officials had looked closely enough at deficiencies in the West Warwick nightclub that seemed glaring in hindsight, particularly the highly flammable foam sound insulation that ignited when Great White used indoor fireworks.

One high official — who asked not to be identified — fears there are areas in which his own department is not able to carry out all of its duties. He worries that he and others will be blamed if a preventable catastrophe occurs on the scale of the Station.

For its part, the administration of Governor Donald L. Carcieri seems inclined to reduce, not expand, the overall workforce. A former corporate chief executive, Carcieri said during his campaign that he would conduct a "Big Audit" of state government to root out useless spending. After he won, Carcieri organized a "Fiscal Fitness" team of state employees looking for ways to conduct government more efficiently.

In a recent interview, Carcieri’s outgoing director of administration, Robert J. Higgins, says he hopes that real cuts in the workforce will result from the Fiscal Fitness plan, due in December, as well as a reorganization that will put workers where they are most needed. "I’m sure departments are stretched," Higgins says of the current status of state government. "[But] I’d be surprised if a department is not capable of fulfilling the central mission of the department." Told that some workers are worried about a critical failure, Higgins adds, "I’m not in the weeds as are the individual department heads. Nothing I’ve seen . . . has suggested today there’s that level of risk."

ONE OFFICIAL "in the weeds" is A.T. Wall, head of the state Department of Corrections (DOC). Wall says that because of understaffing in the department’s probation and parole unit, he’s concerned about public safety. Seventy probation officers are supposed to track the progress of 20,000 former prisoners at the Adult Correctional Institutions, he says.

In the optimal situation, probation officials, by checking with the former prisoners, their families and employers, can gauge whether inmates seem to be going straight. If not, they can take steps to return offenders to prison. Enormous caseloads of 300 former inmates for every one probation officer, however, make it "impossible to provide the kind of supervision needed," says Wall, a former probation officer.

Wall says the DOC is trying to carry out its duties given its limited staff. For example, the department set up a special unit that tracks 1000 people convicted of sex crimes, with caseload ratios of only 1-to-40, "because we recognize there is a significant risk." Likewise, those with a record of domestic violence receive more scrutiny.

"We are meeting our minimum obligations," Wall says. "But as a citizen of the state and a public safety professional, I would feel much more comfortable if we had more probation officers." He adds, "I do think a crisis in public safety has been building over the years because of the lack of attention to probation, and I’m concerned about the implications for the protection of the public."

The problems of the probation unit are in contrast to the other major area under Wall’s supervision, the ACI itself — although milder staffing strains are appearing there, too. At the prison, every shift is covered, Wall says. Both Wall and Kenneth Rivard, of the Rhode Island Brotherhood of Correctional Officers, the guards’ labor union, agree that mandatory overtime, in which guards are held over from their regular shifts to work another, is increasing. And although overtime is considered more cost-effective than increasing staff, a $13 million overtime tab is expected this year.

Wall is also discussing a new training class for guards because of a shrinking workforce at the prison and an increasing number of inmates. In July 2002, the uniformed force of supervisors and officers numbered 974, guarding 3562 inmates, he says. By next fall, the staff could number 887, with an inmate population of 3660.

KAREN A. BACHUS is a clinical psychologist who works as a child protective investigator for the Department of Children, Youth, and Families. She’s part of a child protective assessment unit that staffs the department’s hotline — (800) RICHILD — for child abuse and neglect calls. (Under Rhode Island law, any adult with knowledge of abuse is obligated to report it.)

When the division was established about two decades ago, Bachus says, there were 80 workers to answer the telephones and investigate complaints. Now, the authorized level is 68. But Bachus says because of military and other leaves, there are about 50 workers available. (A DCYF administrator says the actual number is 43.) The impact, Bachus says, is that instead of an optimal three cases a week — each investigation usually takes 10 hours — investigators sometimes have six to seven cases.

Bachus said she sometimes works 65-hour weeks, with some of the extra work on paid overtime, and the rest on her own time. "If you don’t put the extra time in, it’s not doable," she says. "We really have a good team here. I would say there are excellent people. We try to work together and support each other."

In the best of circumstances, Bachus says, the work is stressful. Investigators often walk into tense situations, and there are instances where abuse is obvious, with children having broken limbs or skulls. It takes time to sort out issues, including the highly charged decision of whether to take children away from their parents and place them in foster care. The overtime caused by short-staffing simply makes the stress worse, she says.

And there’s the overarching fear that the department will miss cases or underestimate the danger to a child. "We are all working as hard as we can," Bachus says. "One of the things that scares most of us that Rhode Island could end up as another Florida [where there was a major child protective scandal]. I don’t know how long people can go on. People are tired."

Nancy R. Reed, president of the Rhode Island Alliance of Social Service Employees, Local 580, which represents DCYF workers, says the workloads prevent investigators from closing cases more rapidly. More importantly, Reed says, "The child and the family are just not getting what they are entitled to from the state."

DCYF Director Jay G. Lindgren Jr. agrees his workers are tired and overworked — and that it increases the chances of a case being mishandled. "It means we might not get out quickly enough, might not be thorough enough," Lindgren says. "It means we may be overlooking something — it’s pretty basic."

Overall, the department is down by about 68 workers compared to 1-1/2 years ago, mostly people Lindgren describes as "front-line workers" — social workers, protective investigators, or staff at the juvenile Training School. But not all problems, Lindgren says, can be traced to insufficient staff. "We’ve had bad things happen with low caseloads," he says. He believes the department has to learn to work more efficiently and try new approaches. Further, the department is projecting a $5 million deficit this year, so each new hire worsens that problem.

Still, the DCYF director says caseloads are too high. Social workers should be working with 14 or fewer families, he says, but actual caseloads are higher. Child protective investigators should have only about 12 cases a month, and they have more. "I do feel we’ve got to do something about the front-line staff," Lindgren says. "I hope to do something fairly soon."