State legislators meet with DHR officials to identify and solve shortfalls

FAIRHOPE, Ala. (WALA) - State Senator Chris Elliott hosted a meeting in Fairhope between the Baldwin County Legislative Delegation and Alabama Department of Human Resources (DHR) officials Wednesday, July 17, 2024 to talk about challenges the department faces.

The meeting was requested by Baldwin County DHR officials a couple months ago. State DHR administrators and several local legislators were also in attendance.

Since FOX10 News began looking into alleged investigative shortfalls at Baldwin County DHR, we’ve yet to be able to speak with a local representative. It was during a child abuse investigation that a Robertsdale Police detective said he’d learned that four prior cases of suspected abuse against the same victim had been reported to Baldwin County DHR by her teachers but none of the cases were ever turned over to law enforcement.

Case specific, confidential information is protected by HIPAA laws, so DHR won’t answer any questions about the Robertsdale case. The controversy has raised concern, not only with the public, but with state legislators as well. Representative Matt Simpson says it was important to hear the department’s concerns in order to look towards solutions.

“We discussed staffing. We discussed salary. We discussed retention. We discussed how do we make sure we have the proper people in the proper places to make sure we get the job done,” said State House District No. 96 Representative, Matt Simpson. “How do we have the people that can get there to answer the calls after hours? How do we have the people who ae trained to know what they can do? A lot of people are working as hard as they possibly can to do everything they can to fight for the citizens here. What can we do to get those people that are trying to make the citizens better, what can we do to get them resources? What can we do to get them access to get what they need to make sure that DHR can flourish?”

State Senator Chris Elliott was hopeful the meeting would be a chance to identify challenges and issues within DHR, determine how widespread they are and begin talking about solutions. He said this was a good start. A concern of his is how to make the process of reporting suspected abuse more streamlined by involving School Resource Officers more.

“You have folks that are trained and conditioned. ‘Okay, I’ve got to let DHR know about this,’ and they still do, but to the extent possible, let’s use our resources that we have available in our schools in particular to help aid in moving that process along, especially if we think it’s a serious case of abuse or neglect,” Elliott said, advocating for SROs to report suspected abuse to both DHR and to their own investigators. “I think that right there will take some burden off of…off of DHR or at least give the law enforcement folks some idea of what’s going on and not have to wait for it to come back out of DHR after it’s been looked at.”

Since we first told you about the Robertsdale case which sparked this FOX10 News investigation, we’ve received dozens of phone calls and emails from viewers who have their own concerns with DHR. We’ll continue to press for answers. FOX10 News reached out to the local and state DHR offices requesting staffing and caseload numbers last month and again Wednesday day but have gotten no response. The DHR Board themselves are volunteers who are appointed by the Baldwin County Commission.

Senator Elliott says he’s committed to working with the local and state DHR administration to find both short-term and long-term solutions and expects to have several more meetings like this one.

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