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A Statewide CPS System Review Still Needs To Happen

A two-count indictment handed up by a Chautauqua County grand jury earlier this week answer the biggest burning question in the unsolved murder of 16-month-old Nayla Hodnett in 2014.

A person of interest has been charged with second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter in relation to Nayla’s death. Give credit to Jamestown police officers for five years of investigation before they finally got the break they needed to have a case strong enough for prosecutors to take to court. While no one is satisfied with the length of time it took for charges to be filed, the local progress of the case — or lack thereof, depending on one’s point of view — is public. There has been much criticism levied against former District Attorney David Foley, current District Attorney Patrick Swanson and the Jamestown Police Department for the lack of justice for Nayla Hodnett.

What should we make, though, of a much-ballyhooed review of the case former state Sen. Catharine Young, R-Olean, requested almost four years ago? There is no record on the state Office of Child and Family Services’ website of the review Young requested a little more than a year after Nayla’s death asking state officials to review records of any allegations or incidents of abuse to Nayla before she died. In Young’s letter to Sheila Poole, who was in May 2019 the acting commissioner of the Office of Children and Family Services, Young wrote that Christine Schuyler, county social services commissioner, told the senator local Child Protective Services officials did not have contact with Nayla Hodnett before her death despite reports Nayla had been taken to the hospital previously for a possible broken leg. Young asked that she be informed of Poole’s decision and any findings that were determined.

Attempts to see if there was an investigation were unsuccessful this week. If the review uncovered shortcomings in the local handling of Nayla’s case people deserve to know. If the review showed local officials handled the case appropriately and there wasn’t a reasonable action that could have prevented Nayla’s death, the public deserves to know that too.

In 2013, state Sen. Tim Kennedy, D-Buffalo, made a request similar to Young’s after three Western New York children had been beaten and murdered by people entrusted with their care. Kennedy asked for a review of the cases to make sure all that could have been done was done while also asking for a full-scale study of the functions of Child Protective Services agencies, the state’s practices and interactions of state officials with county agencies. It’s not known if anything came of that effort. And, twice in the past four years, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has vetoed CPS-related legislation passed by the state Legislature. In 2016, Cuomo vetoed legislation that established workload standards for CPS employees, limiting them to 15 open cases at any one time. Assemblyman Joe Giglio, R-Gowanda, voted in favor of that piece of legislation in the Assembly’s Children and Families Committee. Another piece of legislation passed by the state Legislature in 2017 would have required state officials to turn over all records of cases submitted through the state’s central registry to local CPS officials even if state officials had deemed the allegations untrue. That legislation was also vetoed by Cuomo.

State legislators obviously have heard complaints from their constituents about the way CPS works and tried to correct what legislators see as gaps in the system. Kennedy’s suggestion from 2013 is as valid now as it was then. It’s time for a public review of the way the entire CPS system works. Then, recommendations can be made regarding suggested caseloads and changes to the way the system operates. Cuomo is making bail reform a make-or-break issue during budget deliberations this year. Maybe he should make the well-being of the state’s children a make-or-break issue too.

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