(WBBM NEWSRADIO) - After another bad report card for his child welfare agency, Governor J.B. Pritzker defended both the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and its director, Marc Smith.
This comes as Republicans in the Illinois General Assembly continue to criticize the Pritzker administration for its oversight of the long-troubled agency.
An audit released last week blasted DCFS for not keeping up on children’s vaccinations, not properly keeping records, and not completing safety checklists. That last one applied to 98% of the cases checked.
Asked about DCFS at an unrelated news conference Monday, Pritzker placeD the blame squarely on his predecessor.
“We have a good leader, somebody who is working very hard and comes from an agency that was directly serving these children,” Pritzker said. “You’ve got to provide the resources necessary, and then you’ve got to rebuild things that took years to build up and were devastated by Governor Rauner. 500 residential beds were done away with during the Rauner administration. You can’t snap your fingers and get 500 beds back.”
Pritzker said it won’t help to fire the director, even a director who has been held in contempt of court ten times.
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