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BILL # SB 1013 |
TITLE: DCS; missing children; report |
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SPONSOR: Farnsworth D |
STATUS: As Introduced |
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PREPARED BY: Patrick Moran |
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The bill would require the Department of Child Safety (DCS) to provide a monthly confidential report to the Governor, the President of the Senate, Speaker of the House, and the Chief justice of the Supreme Court concerning missing children.
Estimated Impact
JLBC estimates that the bill's reporting requirements would generate additional workload for DCS staff. The amount of added workload would depend on how much detail DCS would provide about each missing child and the amount of redacted information. As a result, the JLBC Staff estimates that the cost would range from minimal to DCS' high-side estimate of $220,000.
DCS estimates that it would require an additional 3 to 5 staff to implement redactions in the report and would need a designated person to manage the report, which the Department estimates would generate a General Fund cost of $220,000. The actual magnitude of such costs will depend on how much information DCS decides to include in the report, which is not specifically defined in the bill.
DCS defines a child in its custody as "missing" when the child cannot be located or whose parent or relatives absconded with the child. As of November 2019, DCS designated 41 of the children in its custody as missing.
The bill would require DCS to provide monthly confidential reports to the Governor, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court concerning missing children. The report would include the age of each child at the time the child went missing and a redacted detailed description of the circumstances related to the missing status of the child.
The new report would generate additional workload for DCS staff. The magnitude of the workload increase would depend on how much information would be included in the reports and the prevalence of redactions. The bill requires that description of the circumstances related to the status of the missing child be "detailed," but does not prescribe specific information to be included other than the age of each child at the time the child went missing, so it is difficult to know how much time would be required to produce the report.
DCS estimates that it would require 3 to 5 additional staff to complete redactions in the report and a designated person to manage the report, which would generate General Fund costs of $220,000. Whether these costs would materialize would depend on how much detail DCS chooses to provide in producing the reports.
Local Government Impact
None
2/7/20