A pair of bills proposed by metro- east legislators (Missouri) to keep better track of how state workers investigate child abuse cases and to open case records to the public have been assigned to a newly formed Department of Children and Family Services Oversight Committee.

A third piece of legislation, House Bill 1118 proposed by Rep. Chapin Rose, R-Charleston, would establish a Department of Children and Family Services citizen review board.

The committee's first hearing on the proposed laws -- prompted by the News-Democrat's three-day investigative series "Lethal Lapses" published Nov. 19-21 -- was set for Friday. But the session was postponed to a date to be announced.

Nevertheless, Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Mulberry Grove, said today, "This is serious stuff, but it's not rocket science. You can look at it and you can see what needs to be done and you can take action quickly. These things don't have to be studied for days after days."

House Bill 617, proposed by Stephens and Rep. Tom Holbrook, D-Belleville, would require that within 10 days of a completed DCFS investigation of child injury or neglect, the Office of Inspector General for DCFS must be supplied with, "A complete report on the case."

The inspector general would then be encouraged to immediately review any child safety plan that takes more than 30 days to complete and to review staff performance and recommend "corrective action" or intervene to make sure children are protected.

Currently, the Inspector General's office primarily investigates cases where children die or are seriously injured while involved with DCFS. These redacted reports, which neither name the victims nor identify where the abuse occurred, are usually published two or three years after a child is injured.

House Bill 616, proposed by Holbrook and Stephens, would open records to the public in cases where children die or are seriously injured but only when someone has been criminally charged in connection with the abuse.

Currently, DCFS spokesmen provide little or no information on abuse cases even when a death results, citing state confidentiality laws.

Missouri has an open records law that basically makes all but a few records available in cases where children die under state care even if no one is charged.

However, Holbrook's bill as written, allows information to be withheld if it would cause "mental or physical" harm to another child in a household or if it would, "undermine an ongoing criminal investigation

Asked if these restrictions might negate the intention of the proposed open record law, Holbrook said, "Advocates think this law is an improvement and we're going to move ahead."

Holbrook said he might check with members of the Illinois Press Association, including its attorney Don Craven of Springfield, on the open records restrictions.

The newspaper's series reported that 53 children died in Illinois while involved with the DCFS after caseworkers, child protection investigators, supervisors and private agency workers committed blunders, made lapses in judgment or failed to follow their own regulations.

In one case, an investigator's judgment was questioned after he allowed a mother to keep her infant son while she regularly smoked crack cocaine. The boy was beaten to death soon after the case was ended.

In other instances of physical abuse that resulted in a child's death, state workers misspelled suspect's names when checking criminal records for violence and failed to find convictions, or failed to make a check.

One worker wouldn't investigate a child scalding case because a state-issued thermometer didn't come with batteries.

As for whether the inspector's general's office, which has fewer than 20 employees, can handle what would be a large influx of abuse cases to review, Stephens said, "I will be interested to hear what experts say whether this is going to be cumbersome. I'm prepared to argue that it's not but if it's going to be cumbersome maybe we can talk about ways we can overcome it.."

A spokeswoman said Inspector General Denise Kane was out of town and could not be reached.

Contact reporter George Pawlaczyk at gpawlaczyk@bnd..com or 239-2625. > Contact reporter Beth Hundsdorfer at bhundsdorfer@bnd.com or 239-2570.