Illinois Department of Children and Family Services Director Marc Smith will resign effective Dec. 31, he told colleagues in an all-staff town hall meeting Wednesday morning.
For years, critics had called on Smith to resign or be fired, amid legislative hearings, contempt citations, a murdered child protection investigator and the highest number of children who died after contact with the agency in 20 years.
Smith announced his voluntary resignation Wednesday via a livestreamed video to agency staff, noting that his decision came after discussions with family and colleagues within the child welfare system.
鈥淪ometimes the media sometimes politicians, sometimes critics take an opportunity of tragedy to move an agenda,鈥� Smith said during the call. 鈥淏ut we understand that we are here for the day-to-day. We are here, at all times, for all of our kids and we will serve them and care for them with compassion, seriousness, and honor.鈥�
The resignation came after another scathing audit of the agency was published last week, finding that in recent decades, DCFS meant to protect children from abuse and neglect.
Smith鈥檚 announcement was one of three agency head departures made public by Gov. JB Pritzker鈥檚 office Wednesday. Theresa Eagleson, who has led the state鈥檚 Department of Healthcare and Family Services since January 2019, will leave her post at the end of the year, according to a news release from the governor鈥檚 office. Illinois Department on Aging Director Paula Basta will also retire in December.
鈥淭heresa, Paula, and Marc reflect the best of state government 鈥� people who have sacrificed to help millions of constituents through their dedication to service,鈥� Pritzker said in a news release. 鈥淒espite the excellent quality of the candidates who will fill their shoes, their full impact on state government can never truly be articulated or replicated, and I thank them for their years of service.鈥�
The personnel announcements come less than a month after Pritzker鈥檚 office announced Deputy Gov. Sol Flores, who oversees Illinois鈥� health and human service agencies 鈥� including DCFS, DHFS and the Department on Aging 鈥� will be leaving in mid-October. Grace Hou, the current director of the Department of Human Services, will be promoted to that role.
Audit findings聽
The released last week revealed repeat findings 鈥� going back decades 鈥� that directly impacted the care and safety of children.
The audit found DCFS violated state law by:
- Failing to notify law enforcement within 24 hours of the death, serious injury or sexual abuse of a child. Audits have included similar findings seven times throughout the past decade.
- Failing to complete investigations of abuse and neglect within statutory timelines. Audits have included similar findings 17 times since 1998.
- Failing to respond to a report of abuse or neglect within 24 hours, putting the child in further jeopardy. Previous audits have included similar findings 17 times since 1998.
- Failing to notify schools of credible sexual and physical abuse.
- Failing to timely notify prosecutors of test results for children born having been exposed to controlled substances.
- Failing to alert the Illinois Department of Public Health and the Illinois Department of Human Services when there were allegations of abuse or neglect of a hospitalized child, including a psychiatrically hospitalized child.
House Republicans renewed what have been repeated calls for Smith鈥檚 removal after the audit鈥檚 release. In January 2022, Republicans called for hearings after Smith was found in contempt of court 12 times by a Cook County judge for failing to put abused children in appropriate placements. The judge faulted Smith for holding children in psychiatric hospitals for months after the court had ordered them to be removed.
At the hearings that led to the contempt charges, Cook County Public Guardian Charles Golbert, who represents DCFS wards in court, said his office had raised concerns about inappropriate placements since 2016. Cook County Judge Patrick T. Murphy took the unprecedented step to find Smith personally in contempt of court.
Some of the contempt charges were purged when the agency moved the children to appropriate placements. Others were vacated by an appellate court which ruled that Smith did not willfully disobey the court鈥檚 order, but simply did not have the ability to comply with it, because DCFS didn鈥檛 have enough beds in places like group homes, shelters or other foster care placements.
Golbert has been one of Smith鈥檚 toughest critics and noted that the contempt citations were a statement.
鈥淭he placement shortage crisis is so bad that Smith holds the dubious distinction of being the only director in DCFS鈥檚 history to be held in contempt of court a dozen times for failing to place children appropriately in violation of court orders,鈥� Golbert said. 鈥淲hile the contempt findings were eventually either purged or reversed on appeal, they evidence the frustration of the parties in juvenile court, and apparently of the judges, in DCFS鈥檚 inability to find needed placements for its children.鈥�
Smith repeatedly said during hearings and in media interviews that he was working hard to beef up specialized placements that were lost during the state鈥檚 two-year budget impasse between 2015 and 2017.
In addition to DCFS wards languishing in psychiatric placements, the agency鈥檚 Office of the Inspector General found in fiscal year 2023 that deaths of children who were involved with DCFS reached its highest number in 20 years. In 2023, the OIG reported that 171 children in Illinois died within a year of contact with the agency.
Among the children who died was 19-month-old Sophia Faye Davis of Springfield. Sophia died in February 2022 after child abuse allegations were made against her father鈥檚 girlfriend. A DCFS investigator found allegations were not credible, despite cuts to the child鈥檚 mouth, a black eye, bruises on her face and a broken arm just weeks before the child died from blunt force trauma. Cierra Coker, the woman accused of beating Sophia to death, remains in jail on first-degree murder charges. She is set to go to trial later this month.
A month before Sophia鈥檚 death, DCFS child protection investigator Deidre Silas was sent alone to a house to check on the welfare of six children. Sangamon County sheriff鈥檚 deputies found Silas鈥� body after she had been bludgeoned and stabbed to death. Critics pointed to high caseloads and short staffing as one contributor to Silas鈥� murder.
Pritzker, meanwhile, consistently backed Smith publicly amid the contempt citations and pressure from Republicans and others to fire him. On Wednesday, Smith expressed gratitude for the governor鈥檚 support.
鈥淚 thank him for the times that he's had to stand in front of a microphone and defend me and our organization and his willingness to do that,鈥� he said.
Uphill battle 聽
Smith was one of Pritzker鈥檚 last key hires in 2019. When announcing Smith as acting director of DCFS in late March of that year, Pritzker鈥檚 office touted his years of experience working in Illinois鈥� child welfare system. Smith spent some of his early career at DCFS, and for a decade prior to his appointment as DCFS head, he oversaw foster care and intact family services for a decade at the state鈥檚 largest private child welfare service contractor, Aunt Martha鈥檚.
Before officially appointing Smith the troubled agency鈥檚 11th leader in less than eight years, Pritzker spent $50,000 of his own money to conduct a national search for a new director. Most of the previous 10 directors were stopgap appointees who held the role for less than a year under former Govs. Pat Quinn and Bruce Rauner.
The Senate didn鈥檛 vote to confirm Smith as DCFS director until June 2021, but when he leaves state service at the end of the year, he鈥檒l have been the fourth-longest-tenured leader in the agency鈥檚 history going back to 1964.
Smith faced immediate challenges upon his appointment in the early months of Pritzker鈥檚 administration. The previous summer, detailing the circumstances that ultimately lead to Smith鈥檚 contempt citations 鈥� that Illinois foster children had been 鈥渓anguishing鈥� in psychiatric hospitals, staying 鈥渂eyond medical need鈥� due to lack of appropriate placements being available.
Advocates, however, argued that situation after Smith took over the agency and he also faced an onslaught of news reports that foster children sometimes slept in DCFS offices because there weren鈥檛 enough shelter beds available.
News outlets also reported that a DCFS contractor transported foster children in shackles during long car rides to and from placements. The agency subsequently banned the use of metal restraints, allowing only 鈥渟oft鈥� restraints in limited situations. But DCFS was the company after it used shackles despite the ban, and in 2021 the General Assembly prohibiting their use.
In the months before Smith became DCFS director, the agency scrambled to deal with the fallout of a pair of high-profile child abuse and neglect deaths in central Illinois. In January 2019, eight-year-old Rica Rountree of Bloomington on her by her father鈥檚 girlfriend, and in February of that year, the emaciated body of two-year-old was found wrapped in a urine-soaked blanket in her family鈥檚 Decatur home. The day Smith was appointed, the parents of five-year-old AJ Freund of Crystal Lake beat the boy to death, though his body wouldn鈥檛 be found until more than a week later.
DCFS had previous involvement with all three families before the children鈥檚 deaths.
Smith also faced challenges implementing an inherited plan to transfer tens of thousands of foster children and former youth-in-care from traditional fee-for-service Medicaid to a managed care organization during his first year. The transition was ultimately delayed three times after media reporting and outcry from foster families showed the state had failed to recruit enough providers 鈥� including specialists 鈥� to care for that population, who often have complex medical needs.
Seven months into Smith鈥檚 tenure at the agency, a found repeated failures at DCFS鈥檚 hotline for reporting child abuse and neglect, including that it for mandated reporters to get a call back from the agency.
COVID-19 exacerbates issues聽
Less than a year into Smith鈥檚 tenure, the COVID-19 pandemic hit Illinois, and the child welfare system was left scrambling. In addition to organizational chaos in those first few months, COVID set off a period of tension between the state and its myriad child welfare contractors that serve more than 80 percent of children and families in the system.
In the spring of 2021, a coalition of providers penned a scathing letter about Smith鈥檚 leadership as he awaited Senate confirmation.
鈥淚deally, a strong public-private partnership would leverage the best of both sectors for the benefit of the children and families they serve,鈥� the letter said. 鈥淗owever, that relationship has eroded over time to the point now where providers say they feel disconnected and disrespected, segregated from decision-making and starved of resources and support.鈥�
Since then, however, tensions have calmed between the state and providers, eased by an infusion of cash for provider reimbursements that had been held at the same levels for approximately two decades.
The chronically understaffed agency has also increased its headcount to its highest levels in the last 15 years, according to the governor鈥檚 office.
On Wednesday, Andrea Durbin, the CEO of the Illinois Collaboration on Youth, which sent the 2021 letter on behalf of service providers, praised DCFS鈥� response to the pandemic and the strides made during Smith鈥檚 tenure to recover from the budget impasse.
鈥淐hild welfare services are always a lagging indicator of the functionality of that system, and as predicted, the number of children and youth in care exploded following the impasse, putting an enormous strain on a system that had been neglected for nearly two decades,鈥� Durbin said in a statement. 鈥淭hanks to the Governor and Director Smith, Illinois has seen five consecutive years of investments into the child welfare system to help it better cope with the growing population and the ongoing workforce crisis.鈥�
Pritzker had reappointed Smith for another term in January, although his appointment was still pending in the Senate.
Smith left the all-staff call Wednesday with a charge to DCFS workers: 鈥淲e are running and working at the highest level I believe that this agency has ever worked. Do not let anybody take that away from you. Because I'm sure as hell not letting them take it away from me.鈥�
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