Times Argus Editorial Emphasizes How Important Last Week’s Testimony By Frontline DCF Workers Was
In an editorial in today’s Times Argus about AHS Commissioner Doug Racine’s untimely departure, the writer emphasizes how important last week’s testimony by frontline DCF workers was. This is nice to read. You can’t keep cutting and cutting and expect public services to operate at the level Vermonters expect. VSEA and its DCF members hope the State is listening to Mr. Racine.
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Photo credit: VTDigger
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In an editorial in today’s Times Argus about AHS Commissioner Doug Racine’s untimely departure, the writer emphasizes how important last week’s testimony by frontline DCF workers was. This is nice to read. You can’t keep cutting and cutting and expect public services to operate at the level Vermonters expect. VSEA and its DCF members hope the State is listening to Mr. Racine.
From the editorial:
Testimony from state employees is often dismissed as self-interested, as if they are seeking merely to defend their budgets and pad their departments with unnecessary personnel. But what legislators heard from social workers last week had the ring of authenticity. The volume and pace of their work “is relentless and unrealistic,” said one DCF supervisor.
“We have been struggling behind closed doors for a long time about the challenges that we face as social workers, as an agency and as humans in the field.”
The department’s widely acknowledged problems, already noted by [Gov.] Shumlin, suggest that these are not self-interested bureaucrats but “humans in the field” who have much to offer. [Doug] Racine had urged them to speak out, adding to the pressure on Shumlin to do something to fix the problem. Now, Racine is looking for another job.
Photo Credit: VTDigger