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    CPS Hertel Letter

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    The letter from the Director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services criticizes a recent audit report from the state Auditor General. The director argues the audit used small samples and bureaucratic technicalities to downplay the department's significant progress in child welfare investigations since previous issues, and adopted biased practices outside the typical role of an auditor.

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    CPS Hertel Letter

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    dane
    19K views2 pages
    The letter from the Director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services criticizes a recent audit report from the state Auditor General. The director argues the audit used small samples and bureaucratic technicalities to downplay the department's significant progress in child welfare investigations since previous issues, and adopted biased practices outside the typical role of an auditor.

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    Elizabeth Hertel, Director of Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services referred to the findings in the new audit as “unethical and biased” in a letter to the state Auditor General.

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    The letter from the Director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services criticizes a recent audit report from the state Auditor General. The director argues the audit used small samples and bureaucratic technicalities to downplay the department's significant progress in child welfare investigations since previous issues, and adopted biased practices outside the typical role of an auditor.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    19K views2 pages

    CPS Hertel Letter

    Uploaded by

    dane
    The letter from the Director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services criticizes a recent audit report from the state Auditor General. The director argues the audit used small samples and bureaucratic technicalities to downplay the department's significant progress in child welfare investigations since previous issues, and adopted biased practices outside the typical role of an auditor.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 2

    STATE OF MICHIGAN

    GRETCHEN WHITMER DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES ELIZABETH HERTEL


    GOVERNOR LANSING DIRECTOR

    July 8, 2024

    Doug Ringler, CPA, CIA


    Auditor General
    201 N. Washington Square
    Victor Center, Sixth Floor
    Lansing, MI 48933-1321

    Dear Auditor General:

    This letter addresses your most recent audit report, which is an update of a 2018 OAG
    audit uncovering a series of issues with how the Michigan Department of Health and
    Human Services (MDHHS) handled child welfare investigations during the Snyder
    administration.

    My team worked in good faith to provide your team with the most accurate and relative
    information available in hopes that you would share it fairly and in full context with the
    people of Michigan. Taxpayers deserve to know the significant progress made to keep
    kids safe and families together.

    Unfortunately, it appeared from the start of this process that the OAG would be
    reluctant to acknowledge the program's significant results, irrespective of the facts.
    We find your actions troubling for several reasons: Your findings do not reflect non-
    compliance with established statute and MDHHS policies. Instead, they suggest a
    failure to meet standards that appear to have been arbitrarily devised by the audit
    itself. This is arbitrary and injects a level of unpredictability that undermines the entire
    audit process. This action is unethical and biased.

    In the first observation, you format the audit to falsely suggest that MDHHS does not
    require an assessment of child safety within 24 hours of receiving a report of child
    abuse or neglect. You minimized and disregarded the immediate safety
    assessment performed by CPS during the intake process. This deception is clearly
    intended to inflame emotions and downplay the significant progress made by
    MDHHS since the Snyder era. This action is unethical and biased.

    333 SOUTH GRAND AVENUE • PO BOX 30195 • LANSING, MICHIGAN 48909


    www.michigan.gov/mdhhs • 517-241-3740
    Doug Ringler, CPA, CIA
    Auditor General
    July 8, 2024
    Page 2

    Your “observations” appear to be agenda-driven and lack supporting data. You


    incorrectly suggest that MDHHS policies are less stringent than those found in Kentucky
    and North Carolina. Furthermore, you had to know these baseless observations would
    lead a casual reader to conclude, incorrectly, that you have evidence that MDHHS
    moves too slowly and requires too high of a burden of proof in responding to allegations
    of child abuse. This action is unethical and biased.

    In each above example, you exceeded the scope and expertise of your office. My team
    used the OAG consultation process to request that you address our concerns before
    issuing the final report. You refused to do so. While we welcome your oversight and
    embrace our responsibility to strive for perfection in an imperfect world, my team and I
    are deeply disappointed with the fundamentally biased nature of your report.

    Using small sample sizes and focusing on bureaucratic minutia, your report virtually
    ignores the substantial progress MDHHS has made since the Synder era to
    comply with best practices. The fact is federal court monitors recently found nearly
    100% compliance for the timeliness and staffing of child abuse investigations, and in
    response, a federal judge dramatically reduced requirements for court oversight. In your
    own audit, MDHHS was found to have an 88% compliance rate.

    The audit dwells more on process and paperwork issues than the efforts of
    MDHHS staff to make kids safer and families stronger. For example, your definition
    of “commencing” a child welfare investigation is an opaque and bureaucratic roadblock
    that distracts from practices at MDHHS that are making children safer. You repeatedly
    suggest that MDHHS changed its policies to no real effect, and yet you ignored or
    buried our evidence of progress.

    The public servants and policies at MDHHS are not perfect. We have more work to do,
    and we will never stop improving how we protect Michigan children from the dangers of
    the modern world.

    Historically the OAG has had an important role in providing valuable feedback to help
    departments move forward. Unfortunately, the practices adopted in this audit fall outside
    the purview of the Office of the Auditor General. It cannot be denied that your process
    was deceitful and dishonest, leading to a final product that is unhelpful to
    Michigan’s children.

    Sincerely,

    Elizabeth Hertel
    Director

    EH:lb

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