Springfield News
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Staff at all levels of the Illinois’ beleaguered Department of Children and Family Services is not responsive to calls, several stakeholders have told The Daily Line, pointing to major communications issues as one reason for the agency’s troubles in recent years.
Illinois Department of Children and Family Services Director Marc Smith. [Submitted]
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SEP 16, 2019
A simmering feud between two Northwest Side Democratic party leaders has boiled over into an all-out war.
A simmering feud between State Sen. Robert Martwick, top, and 41st Ward Democratic Commiteeperson Tim Heneghan has boiled over into an all-out war. [Submitted]
Tim Heneghan, who is the 41st Ward Democratic committeeperson, tweeted his support on Thursday for Chicago Police Sgt. Danny O’Toole, who is mounting a primary challenge against newly-minted State Sen. Robert Martwick (D-Chicago).
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SEP 12, 2019
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Nineteen children who had recently been on the Department of Children and Family Services’ radar have died in just the first 11 weeks of the 2020 fiscal year, according to the agency’s inspector general.
Those deaths came after a particularly tumultuous year for the department, in which 124 children, whose family had some sort of involvement with DCFS within the previous year died during the 2019 fiscal year. -
SEP 09, 2019
UNLOCKEDIllinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul is one of 54 attorneys general who have urged federal officials to crack down on robocalls. [Heather Cherone/The Daily Line]
Your cellphone rings from a number you don’t recognize. Reluctantly, you pick it up and discover it’s an automated call from your credit card company, warning you that someone has fraudulently used your card to buy 10 plane tickets to Singapore. You won’t have to pay the charges. Whew!
Amid state and federal efforts to crack down on scam robocalls, legitimate robocallers worry that calls like this one will be blocked too. -
The technology that Illinois’ Departments of Human Services and Healthcare and Family Services officials use to determine eligibility has been improperly calibrated for six years, which may have resulted in overpayment for programs like welfare assistance and food stamps, according to a recent audit.
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When Illinois and Michigan announced a first-of-its-kind interstate agreement to share cloud technology to manage both states’ Medicaid rolls in the summer of 2013 — just as Illinois’ Medicaid program was about to expand as part of the Affordable Care Act — the two states were lauded for their innovative idea that promised to save both states money.
But an audit released last month from Auditor General Frank Mautino’s office reveals that Illinois has not been upholding its end of the bargain, and places part of the blame on the Department of Healthcare and Family Services, which manages Medicaid, as well as the Department of Human Services, the Department of Children and Family Services and the Department on Aging.
