Rick Scott's Poor Handling of Department of Children & Families Deaths

I have blogged in the past about child abuse and mismanagement by the Department of Children & Families here, here and here. Gov Rick Scott has praised Secretary David Wilkins handling of the DCF. The only problem with Scott's narrative is dead children and the words of Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jeri Beth Cohen.

“We have a very severe systemic problem,” Cohen said. “The system is not working, and it’s scary.”

“Every single one of these deaths could have been avoided,” said Cohen who was a veteran child welfare judge before transferring to Miami’s drug court, where she often still deals with parents whose addictions undermine their parenting. “You can’t explain away this many child deaths in this short a period of time where the state’s child protective investigation system is implicated. It’s urgent and it’s serious and it’s unconscionable..''

Translation: Judge Cohen is saying that the state bears responsibility in these deaths and lacks credibility. The Scott administration's first reaction to the TB outbreak was to cover it up. The result was 3,000 Floridians getting TB. This is the kind of incompetent governing that happens when a ideologue conservative becomes governor.