Open Letter: Washington For All
We write to express our vehement opposition to SB 5792 and 5793, and our profound disappointment at the proposals to undermine the rights, pay, and benefits of Washington State employees who dedicate their lives to serving the most vulnerable among us.
These bills, if enacted, would:
- Impose a 5% pay cut
- Implement mandatory monthly furlough days, resulting in further pay reductions.
- Permanently eliminating collective bargaining for healthcare.
- Increase healthcare premiums by 5%.
It is crucial to understand the vital services state employees provide:
- We investigate abuse and neglect allegations, ensuring the safety of children and vulnerable adults, and facilitate family preservation, reunification, and permanency.
- We maintain the safety of Washington's roads.
- We process essential benefits, including unemployment insurance, food assistance, healthcare, and childcare.
- Department of Corrections workers ensure community safety and support re-entry for formerly incarcerated individuals.
- We provide care for adults with developmental disabilities in state facilities.
- We ensure all Washingtonians have the information and resources to stay safe and healthy.
- We protect Washington’s environment and wildlife to make sure it is there for all to enjoy and for future generations.
- And we perform countless other essential functions that protect and serve the citizens of Washington.
As child welfare workers, we've been begging our elected officials for more resources to do our jobs safely, especially with all the laws they've passed on us. Back in 2007, we were already short nearly 1,000 positions. And guess what? We've only had more work piled on us with fewer and fewer people to do it.
We WFSE members testified against the "Keeping Families Together Act" because we knew it would make things worse. The higher bar for removing kids from dangerous situations from risk of substantial harm to imminent physical harm, the changes to placement standards, and the lower standards for reunification? We knew it wouldn't work without more staff and resources, and that the legislation itself could actually harm kids.
Tragically, our fears have been realized, with a more than 220% increase in near-fatalities and fatalities among children in Washington State.
Since that massive overhaul of child welfare, we've actually seen our frontline staff numbers go down while our workload has exploded thanks to things like:
- The Supreme Court making us write a court report every 30 days and attend hearings – so much work that we're literally sitting on the floor in overcrowded courtrooms (yep, we write all our own legal documents!).
- The "Reason to Know" ruling that means we do active efforts for any family that reports any Native American ancestry (even reporting a DNA test).
- New requirements to make sure parents with developmental disabilities get the support they need.
- Legislation that lets all young adults stay in extended foster care, even if they don't meet minimum requirements, which has increased extended foster care caseloads.
- The D.S. settlement, where the legislature funded the middle management positions requested, but didn't give us the staff we desperately needed for the three new facilities the Department created. Instead, the 60-70 staff needed were taken from current vacancies, primarily frontline field staff.
Look, we're not against all these changes. Some are good. But what we absolutely will not stand for is unfunded mandates that make our jobs impossible. What makes kids safer? Safe staffing. What makes our institutions, our roads, and vulnerable adults safer? Safe staffing.
Safe staffing saves lives. Period.
Reviews of child near-fatalities and fatalities have consistently pointed to unsafe workloads and the "Keeping Families Together Act" as major reasons for these tragedies. They've also constantly raised concerns about the mental health of our frontline staff who are drowning under the weight of these critical incidents and crushing workloads.
Our elected officials have failed to address the consequences of their own legislation or to provide the necessary staffing to alleviate the burden. They have failed to protect the children of Washington State.
We can't do even more with even less. Our caseloads are already double, triple, quadruple what's considered safe.
Shame on anyone who believes we should balance the budget on the backs of vulnerable people. Harming the workers who dedicate their lives to public service does exactly that.