Governor Pritzker is sticking with his DCFS director

Posted on May 17, 2022
Illinois Department of Children and Family Services director Marc Smith. (Dave Dahl/WJBC)

By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – Four days after another bad report card for his child welfare agency, Gov. JB Pritzker defended both the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and its director, Marc Smith.

An audit released last week blasted the Department of Children and Family Services for not keeping up on children’s vaccinations, not properly keeping records, and not completing safety checklists. That last one applied to 98 percent of the cases checked.

Asked about DCFS at an unrelated news conference Monday, Pritzker places the blame squarely on his predecessor.

“We have a good leader, somebody who is working very hard and comes from an agency that was directly serving these children,” Pritzker said. “You’ve got to provide the resources necessary, and then you’ve got to rebuild things that took years to build up and were devastated by Gov. Rauner. 500 residential beds were done away with during the Rauner administration. You can’t snap your fingers and get 500 beds back.”

Pritzker says it won’t help to fire the director – even a director who has been held in contempt of court ten times.

Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected]

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