District of Columbia: More Details Needed on Plans to Integrate Computer Systems With the Family Court and Use Federal Funds
Published: 2002-08-07T00:00:00

Fast Facts:

Highlights:
section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: Congress passed the D.C. Family Court Act of 2001 to reform court practices and establish procedures to improve interactions between the District of Columbia's Family Court, of D.C. Superior Court, and social service agencies in the District. The act directed the Mayor to prepare a plan to integrate the computer systems of District agencies with those of the Court. The fiscal year 2002 D.C. Appropriations Act authorized $200,000 for integrating the computer systems and $500,000 for social workers to implement family court reform. The act also required the Mayor to prepare a plan for these funds and mandated that the plan be issued on July 8, 2002. The Mayor's plan provides such useful information as (1) an outline of the District's current health and human services information technology environment and its information needs and limitations regarding the Family Court, (2) planned and possible short- and long-term initiatives to integrate the District's computer systems with those of the Family Court, (3) five technological integration priorities, and (4) how the $200,000 in appropriated funds will be spent. However, the District has not yet completed essential analyses, such as a requirements analysis, that would provide the basis for additional information. Based on GAO's analysis of the Mayor's plan for using the $500,000 in appropriated funds, it is not clear how the funds are to be used for social workers to implement family court reform, as required by law. The plan discusses the District's use of funds for service liaison, on-site coordination, and border agreement activities, but provides no detail on whether and how these activities involve social workers.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: Reviews of the District of Columbia’s (the District) Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) have identified significant problems in the child welfare system. Congress took steps to help address these problems through passage of the D.C. Family Court Act of 2001. This act reformed court practices and established procedures intended to improve interactions between the court and social service agencies in the District. The act also directed the Mayor to prepare a plan for integrating the computer systems of District agencies with those of the Family Court of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. The fiscal year 2002 D.C. Appropriations Act authorized $200,000 for the completion of a plan on integrating the computer systems and $500,000 for CFSA to use for social workers to implement family court reform. The Appropriations Act also required the Mayor to prepare a plan for the use of these funds and mandated that the plan be issued on July 8, 2002. Additionally, the Appropriations Act required us to analyze the Mayor’s plan within 30 days after its issuance. Because the appropriated funds will not be available until after our report is issued, the District used its own funds for the completed activities.
This report contains the results of our analyses. Our objectives were to (1) assess the contents and effectiveness of the Mayor’s plan for integrating computer systems of District agencies with those of the Family Court, including the planned use of the $200,000 in appropriated funds, and (2) analyze the Mayor’s plan for using the $500,000 in appropriated funds for CFSA social workers to implement family court reform. To achieve these objectives within the required timeframe, we limited our work to a review of the plan and interviews with court officials in the District and court officials from two other states, New Jersey and Virginia, which have undertaken efforts to integrate computer systems of courts with social services.  We also interviewed officials from several key District agencies, including the Mayor’s office; CFSA; the Departments of Human Services, Mental Health, and Health; the Office of Corporation Counsel; and the Office of the Chief Technology Officer. In addition, we examined documents related to the policies and practices of several District social service agencies. To supplement our analysis of the plan, we obtained comments on the Mayor’s plan from officials of the American Bar Association and the Virginia Supreme Court’s court improvement program. We conducted our work from May through July 2002 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
subsections: section_title: Background
paragraphs: Both social service agencies and the courts play an important role in addressing child welfare issues. In the District, CFSA, in conjunction with other agencies, provides important services to promote the safety and well being of children and families. CFSA coordinates public and private partnerships to preserve families and to protect children against abuse and neglect. The Family Court of the D.C. Superior Court has jurisdiction over child welfare cases. The Family Court judges oversee foster care and adoption cases and make decisions concerning the existence of maltreatment, the placement of children in state custody, and whether reasonable efforts have been made to preserve a family to avoid the need for foster care. Additionally, the court holds hearings to determine the appropriateness of the placement of a child in care, terminates parental rights, and finalizes adoptions.
Effective child welfare systems have processes for collaborating and sharing information among the agencies that provide child welfare-related services to children and families, such as mental health services and substance abuse treatment. Like many other jurisdictions, the District has faced challenges in its ability to share information across agencies. In previous work, we reported that CFSA’s operations have been affected by the lack of integration of child welfare services with other support services.
Additionally, it is important that the social service agencies and courts receive and share information they need on the children and families they serve. Caseworkers need to know from the court the status of a child’s case, when a hearing will take place, and a judge’s ruling. Family courts need case history information from caseworkers such as whether services have been provided, who is caring for the child, and if there has been evidence of abuse or neglect. However, CFSA and the District’s former Family Division of the Superior Court have had difficulty sustaining effective working relationships. As a result, cases moved slowly through the system, and decisions intended to improve the safety and well being of children and their families were delayed.
In order to address some of the challenges the court and District agencies have faced, Congress passed the D.C. Family Court Act of 2001. The act reformed court practices and established procedures intended to improve interactions between the court and social service agencies in the District. Family court reform in the District includes several key components that require the direct involvement of CFSA and its social workers. One component involves revising case management practices through the implementation of the one family/one judge concept. Under this concept, the District’s Family Court plans to assign the same judge to all cases involving the same child and family, where practicable, feasible, and lawful. In addition, the Court has asked the Office of the Corporation Counsel to assign attorneys to particular judicial teams, comprised of a judge or magistrate judge. Judicial teams may also include social workers and parents’ attorneys, among other participants. Another key component of District Family Court reform will be on-site coordination of social services at the court. The Mayor must assign staff from several agencies to work on-site at the Family Court. These agencies include CFSA, District of Columbia Public Schools, the Housing Authority, Office of Corporation Counsel, the Metropolitan Police Department, and the Department of Health. In addition, the Mayor must appoint a liaison between the Family Court and the District government. The role of the family court liaison will be to coordinate the activities of CFSA’s social workers as well as representatives of other District social service agencies at the Family Court. The liaison is yet another key component of court reform in the District.
The Family Court Act required the Chief Judge of the Superior Court to submit to Congress a transition plan discussing the transition to a Family Court. This plan was completed in April 2002, and in May 2002, we reported to Congress on this plan. Also, the act required the Mayor of the District of Columbia to submit a plan to Congress within 6 months of enactment of the Family Court Act, or on July 8, 2002, for the integration of District agency computer systems with those of the Family Court. Congress required us to prepare and submit within 30 days of the Mayor’s plan an analysis of the plan’s contents and effectiveness.
On July 8, 2002, the Mayor issued the required plan: Supporting the Vision: Mayor’s Plan to Integrate the District of Columbia’s Social Services Information Systems with the Family Court of the D.C. Superior Court. The plan consists of two parts. Part I addresses the integration of social service agencies’ computer systems with the computer systems of the D.C. Family Court. This part of the plan focuses in large part on the District’s Safe Passages Information Suite (SPIS) initiative as a means of both integrating computer systems and social services within the District’s executive agencies as well as integrating these systems and services with those of the Family Court. We limited our review of SPIS to how it will be used to achieve integration with the Family Court.
Part II of the plan describes the Mayor’s proposal for spending the $700,000 appropriated by the 2002 D.C. Appropriations Act—$200,000 for the completion of the plan to integrate computer systems and $500,000 to CFSA for social workers to implement family court reform. According to the Appropriations Act, these funds shall not be made available until the expiration of the 30-day period that begins on the date we submit our report to the Congress. However, because the 30-day period excludes weekends, holidays, and days the Congress is adjourned for a period of more than 3 days, these funds would not likely have been available until after the start of fiscal year 2003. On August 2, 2002, a supplemental appropriations act was passed specifying, among other things, that these funds shall remain available until September 30, 2003. Since the federal funds have not been released, District officials reported that they used local funds to prepare the computer system integration plan and to plan or, in some cases, complete family court reform activities.
The District estimated that the implementation of the Mayor’s entire plan to integrate social services’ computer systems with those of the Family Court, including short-term and long-term initiatives, will cost $18 million and be completed in 4 years. The District has approximately $4 million reserved for SPIS.
section_title: The Mayor’s Plan Contains Useful Information, but Effectiveness is Contingent on Resolving Critical Issues and Implementing Disciplined Processes
paragraphs: The Mayor’s plan contains useful information on intended efforts to integrate the District’s computer systems with those of the Family Court, including the planned use of appropriated funds, but it does not contain important elements and its effectiveness is contingent on the District’s ability to resolve critical issues and implement disciplined IT management processes. Information on these additional elements, how critical issues are to be addressed, and how information technology is to be managed, while not explicitly be required by the Family Court Act or the Fiscal Year 2002 D.C. Appropriations Act, would enhance the usefulness of the Mayor’s plan.
subsections: section_title: Plan Contains Useful Information but Does Not Include Elements Important to Assessing the Adequacy of the District’s Strategy
paragraphs: As required by the Family Court Act, the Mayor’s July 8 plan provides information on integrating the computer systems of the District with those of the Family Court. According to the plan, the District identified the five integration priorities on the basis of its analysis of high-level requirements and best practice research. These integration priorities are (1) calendar management; (2) notification of the current status of cases, pending dates or deadlines and new events associated with cases, and case dispositions; (3) electronic document management of forms, reports, court orders, or any documents associated with a court case; (4) inquiry-level sharing of critical case information; and (5) reporting. Equally important, according to the D.C. Courts’ director, information technology division, the Family Court agrees with the integration priorities set forth in the Mayor’s plan. The Mayor’s plan also provides other useful information, such as a summary of the District’s current health and human services IT environment and its limitations, as well as descriptions of the types of information that various District offices need from the Family Court. Finally, the plan describes the Mayor’s approach for developing and implementing the SPIS initiative, which is central to the District’s achieving a long-term solution to both the integration of its health and human services systems with the Family Court’s systems and mitigating the current limitations of the District’s health and human services IT environment.
Although the Mayor’s plan provides general descriptions of its current environment and its future plans, it does not include important elements, such as project milestones, that, while not explicitly required by the Family Court Act, or the fiscal year 2002 D.C. Appropriations Act, are critical to assessing the adequacy of the District’s strategy. District IT officials noted that they have not yet completed essential analyses, such as an analysis of requirements that would provide the basis for this additional information. Specifically, the plan does not include the following:   Project milestones. Although the Mayor’s plan discusses a variety of short- and long-term integration strategies, it does not contain milestones for completing these activities. Without milestones, the Congress has neither the information necessary to assess whether the initiatives discussed in the plan can be realistically accomplished nor important criteria with which to measure the progress of the plan’s implementation. According to District IT officials, the deadline for submitting the Mayor’s plan to the Congress did not allow them enough time to develop milestones. The officials also said that they expect to develop a project plan that lays out the project components and milestones for the implementation of the Mayor’s plan by the end of the calendar year.
Specification of integration requirements. The Family Court Act calls for the District to integrate its computer systems with those of the Family Court but does not define integration. The term “integration” can be defined in various ways and how it is defined can significantly affect how the system is designed and developed. Although the Mayor’s plan includes a set of integration principles, such as that integrated systems should improve information quality by eliminating redundant data entry, it does not include a definition of integration within the context of the Family Court Act. Defining integration for the SPIS project early in the planning process is critical because this definition will set the boundaries and help set expectations for the initiative and the individual projects that will make up this initiative. A District IT official agreed that developing an operational definition of integration is important and said that the District planned to establish one; however, the official did not know when this would be done.
How the District will integrate the systems of the specific offices covered by the Family Court Act. The Family Court Act lists six District offices that the Mayor’s plan is to address regarding accessing and sharing information on individuals and families served by the Family Court: the D.C. Public Schools, the D.C. Housing Authority, CFSA, the Office of the Corporation Counsel, the Metropolitan Police Department, and the Department of Health. Although the Mayor’s plan includes a general discussion of the types of information that each of these entities needs from the Family Court, the integration strategies laid out in the plan did not always address the extent to which the information needs of each of these entities will be addressed. For example, the plan discusses a short-term integration strategy for achieving inquiry-level sharing of critical case information with CFSA, but not for the other offices listed in the Family Court Act. District IT officials agreed that the plan does not fully define how the systems of each of the offices identified in the Family Court Act will be integrated with the Family Court’s systems and said that the District is still in the process of analyzing these offices’ needs and defining requirements. However, these officials also noted that the plan discusses short-term integration strategies with CSFA’s FACES system, a system that provides CFSA with unified case management and reporting, which they expect will be a major system involved in integrating the Family Court’s and the District’s health and human systems.
Details on the type of information the District will be providing to the Family Court and how this will be achieved. The Mayor’s plan includes a discussion of the Superior Court’s planned implementation of the Integrated Justice Information System (IJIS), which is intended to be the single point of integration for the District agencies’ interface with the courts. However, the plan does not specify the type of data that the District will be providing to IJIS or the District offices and systems that will be providing these data. Instead, the plan notes that the Superior Court will rely on its IJIS contractor to determine the detailed business requirements of the IJIS stakeholders, which includes the District offices. District IT officials explained that in developing the plan, they focused on what the District offices need from the Family Court, not what these offices needed to provide to the court. The officials said that time constraints prevented them from performing an in-depth review of what they need to provide to the Family Court, and they, therefore, did not include these requirements in the plan, but that the District is working closely with the courts to define these requirements. The D.C. Court’s director, information technology division, agreed that the Court and the District were working closely to define the interfaces between IJIS and the District’s systems and was complimentary about the level of cooperation from the District’s offices in performing this analysis.
Finally, many of the solutions to achieving integration with the Family Court discussed in the plan are depicted only as proposals or options; thus, the plan is not always definitive about exactly how it will achieve the five integration priorities. For example, to achieve the integration priority of electronic document management, the Mayor’s plan lists four options that a cross-organizational team that is to be assembled is expected to evaluate. District IT officials said that the merits and details associated with these proposals and options will be further defined as part of the SPIS framework development project. However, until the District decides which, if any, of these proposals and options it will implement, the Congress will not have critical information with which to evaluate the feasibility and completeness of the District’s plan.
section_title: Effectiveness of the Plan Hinges on Resolving Critical Issues and Implementing Disciplined Processes
paragraphs: The Mayor’s plan assumes that certain issues, such as ensuring the confidentiality of certain records and data quality, will be successfully resolved without explaining how this will be achieved. These issues are formidable, and the effectiveness and ultimate success of the Mayor’s plan will largely depend on the District’s ability to overcome them. Among the critical issues that must be successfully addressed to help ensure the effectiveness of the Mayor’s plan are the following:   Confidentiality/privacy issues. As in other jurisdictions, laws and regulations govern the sharing of data in many District social services programs. For example, federal legislation relating to student educational records and mental and physical health informationprovides privacy protection for and limits access to such information. Upon reviewing the Mayor’s plan, the American Bar Association’s directors of child welfare and research noted that the District should address this critical issue as soon as possible to enable data integration to go forward. The Mayor’s plan recognizes the criticality of data confidentiality issues, but does not provide solutions or alternatives, although the plan indicates that there is a mayoral committee addressing the confidentiality restrictions affecting SPIS data sharing. If not resolved early in the planning stage, confidentiality issues are likely to significantly limit the functionality and flexibility of SPIS and consequently its integration with the Family Court system.
Data quality issues. To be effective, systems must contain high-quality data (e.g., data that are accurate, complete, consistent, and timely). The importance of this issue is illustrated in our prior reports in which we have noted that data accuracy, completeness, and timeliness problems have hampered the District’s program management and operations.The Mayor’s plan recognizes problems with one significant element of data quality—ensuring consistency—and proposes developing common identifiers for persons receiving District services as a necessary, albeit difficult, step in integrating social service IT systems in the District. However, the plan does not address or propose remedies for known data accuracy and completeness problems that must be resolved to ensure the success of the District’s Family Court integration efforts. For example, according to the Mayor’s plan, the FACES system is paramount to the success of the SPIS initiative. However, our December 2000 report noted that this system lacked complete information,  and according to CFSA’s Director, while the situation has improved, as of mid-June this problem still existed.
Current legacy system limitations. According to the Mayor’s plan, the District has disparate information systems that are built on a number of different technology platforms with varying limitations. These limitations vary and include systems that (1) have limited functionality; (2) use old technology and require extensive work to maintain or upgrade them; and (3) do not have, or have limited, external interfaces (in some cases because of confidentiality concerns). Under the SPIS initiative, the District plans to use a commercial middleware tool along with data marts to synchronize case file attributes across systems and bridge multiple hardware and software system differences. Although this may be an appropriate strategy, the use of middleware and data marts would still require the District to address the limitations of its underlying legacy systems. For example, according to Gartner, Inc., a leading private research firm, while the use of middleware has advantages, there are legacy system issues, such as data inconsistency and synchronization and ownership issues that would still have to be addressed. Therefore, unless the District identifies and overcomes the limitations of these legacy systems, the functionality and performance of SPIS could be negatively affected.
U.S. General Accounting Office, District of Columbia Child Welfare: Long-Term Challenges to Ensuring Children’s Well-Being, GAO-01-191 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 29, 2000).
IT workers remains high, and shortcomings in IT human capital management can have serious ramifications. The Mayor’s plan states that the District has a wide range of technological improvement priorities and that SPIS is just one of many strategic priorities. These priorities will require IT personnel with a myriad of skills, which may be acquired through a variety of approaches, including the use of contractors. Accordingly, acquiring, retaining, and effectively managing the right people with the right skills are key to the success of the District’s integration effort.
Another key to the effectiveness of the Mayor’s plan is developing and using disciplined processes in keeping with IT management best practices. We and others have issued guides that discuss IT management practices used by leading organizations and frameworks for measuring an organization’s progress in implementing critical processes. These processes are especially important for projects such as SPIS, in which new ground is being broken.
According to the District’s research, there are currently no examples of robust, two-way electronic information exchanges between social service agencies and court systems readily adaptable. The American Bar Association’s directors of child welfare and research also noted that they know of no robust examples of data exchanges between courts and child protection agencies. Such an uncertain and high-risk environment underscores the need to implement disciplined IT management practices to manage and mitigate risks. In addition to SPIS, using disciplined IT processes is important to the successful development of other new systems discussed in the Mayor’s plan that are either in the planning or development stages. For example, according to the plan, the Metropolitan Police Department is in the early planning stages for a reporting and information delivery system that it expects to implement in early 2004 that the District believes should be a target system for the Family Court in its integration planning.
In the past, we have reported that the District has not implemented disciplined IT management processes and, as a result, the District has had difficulties developing, acquiring, and implementing new systems. To avoid similar problems with the SPIS project, the following are examples of IT management processes that are critical for the District to employ to help ensure that its investment is utilized wisely and results in a system that meets its objectives in a timely and cost-effective manner.
Use of a life-cycle model. The District has not adopted a life-cycle model in developing SPIS that defines expectations for managing IT investments from conception, development, and deployment through maintenance and support. Life-cycle models require organizations to carefully manage risks such as an unrealistic schedule and budget expectations. Without such a model, processes for software development and acquisition will likely remain ad hoc and not adhere to generally accepted standards. Critical to the success of SPIS are the adoption of a life-cycle model and the development of a plan to institutionalize and enforce its use. According to an IT official, the District has drafted a life-cycle model that is being tested on other system development activities.
Development of an enterprise architecture. The development and use of enterprise architectures is a best practice in IT management that leading public and private organizations follow. An enterprise architecture, which is a well-defined and enforced blueprint for operational and technological change, provides a clear and comprehensive picture of an entity or a functional or mission area that cuts across more than one organization—in this case, the child and family social services function. An enterprise architecture consists of three integrated components: a snapshot of the enterprise’s current operational and technological environment, a snapshot of its target environment, and a capital investment roadmap for transitioning from the current to the target environment. Our experience with federal agencies has shown that attempting a major modernization effort without a complete and enforceable enterprise architecture results in systems that are duplicative, are not well integrated, are unnecessarily costly to maintain and interface, and do not effectively optimize mission performance. According to an IT official, because of its complex environment, the District plans to develop an evolving enterprise architecture in components. This official further said that when the enterprise architecture will be completed would be based, in part, on available funding. Proceeding without this enterprise architecture, the District’s SPIS initiative would be at higher risk of not meeting its objectives.
The risk associated with the District’s lack of an enterprise architecture is compounded by its plan to develop, in parallel, an SPIS framework and a pilot program. Specifically, the District plans to (1) develop an SPIS framework, which would include identifying and prioritizing agencies and business processes to be supported by SPIS, the design and documentation of the “to be” business environment, and the identification and sequencing of specific SPIS projects; and (2) pilot aspects of SPIS functionality at two District offices (the functions to be piloted have not yet been determined). Completing these projects in parallel is risky since the District would be designing, developing, and implementing systems before it has identified its current needs and developed a plan to achieve them.
Use of adequate security measures. A basic management objective for any organization is to protect its data from unauthorized access and prevent improper modification, disclosure, or deletion of financial and sensitive information. Accordingly, implementing adequate security measures to achieve this objective is of paramount importance, particularly for projects such as SPIS that are expected to contain sensitive personal information. However, we have previously reported serious and pervasive computer security weaknesses in the District.The Mayor’s plan recognizes the importance of computer security in implementing the SPIS and sets forth seven strategies for ensuring a secure environment, such as limiting the number of authorized users and strong user training programs. The effective implementation of adequate security measures will be a critical factor in ensuring the success of the SPIS project.
Finally, major IT investments should be supported by a well-developed business case that evaluates the expected returns against the costs. Our guidance on IT investment management calls for agencies to identify the expected costs and benefits of proposed investments. We are concerned about whether the District will perform this type of analysis. According to an IT official, the District is not planning to complete a formal cost/benefit analysis nor an analysis of alternatives in support of its Family Court integration strategy. Instead, the District plans to rely on professional judgment in assessing potential solutions within available resources. Moreover, with respect to analyzing alternatives, this official said that the District lacks staff resources and funding to conduct such an analysis. However, without an explicit understanding of the expected costs and benefits up front, the District lacks the basis for sound financial and strategic decisions and a baseline against which managers and executives can measure progress.
section_title: Costs of Completing the Computer Integration Plan Include Planned Expenditures for Related Activities
paragraphs: Of the $700,000 appropriated for fiscal year 2002 in conjunction with the Family Court Act, $200,000 is designated in the Mayor’s spending plan to support the development of a plan integrating the computer systems of the District government with those of the Family Court. The spending plan identifies $158,000 of this $200,000 for the “development of the plan” and $42,000 for “implementation planning.”
The $158,000 for the development of the Mayor’s computer integration plan has, according to the spending plan, provided for a project team consisting of District and contracted staff. The spending plan lists activities involved in the development of the plan; however, it does not associate costs with these activities. For example, the budget for the development of the plan has provided for a project team to perform activities such as the identification of the stakeholders and District agencies affected by the Family Court legislation, the completion of the technological gap analysis of District interactions with the Court, and the assessment of available technologies to enhance data integration, but there are no costs associated with these steps.
The remaining $42,000 budgeted for implementation planning, according to the spending plan, is being reserved to perform certain other activities including preparation of cost estimates for components of the plan, prioritization of the components, and the development of an implementation time line. The activities are important steps in developing the plan for integrating the District and Family Court computer systems.
section_title: The Mayor’s Plan Provides Limited Detail on Social Workers’ Implementation of Family Court Reform
paragraphs: The Family Court Act places several requirements on the Mayor.  The act requires the Mayor, in consultation with the Chief Judge of the Superior Court, to ensure that representatives of the appropriate offices of the District of Columbia government that provide social services and other related services to individuals served by the Family Court are available on- site at the Family Court; to provide information to the Chief Judge of the Superior Court and to the Presiding Judge of the Family Court regarding the services of the District government that are available for the individuals and families served by the Family Court; and to appoint an individual to serve as a liaison between the Family Court and the District government for ensuring that the representatives of the appropriate offices are available on-site at the Family Court. Additionally, the Family Court Act urged that the District enter into a border agreement to facilitate the placement of children in the D.C. child welfare system in homes and facilities in Maryland and Virginia.
The 2002 D.C. Appropriations Act provided $500,000 to the Mayor “for the Child and Family Services Agency to be used for social workers to implement Family Court reform.” The Mayor states that these appropriated funds will be used to support his responsibilities under the Family Court Act and identifies three categories for the use of the funds. The three categories are (1) liaison activities, (2) on-site coordination of services and information, and (3) border agreements. The plan indicates that the appropriated funds will be used as specified in table 1.
The three categories listed in the Mayor’s plan and our analyses are as follows.
Liaison Activities. The plan does not provide the details necessary to show how CFSA social workers will be involved in these activities, as required for these activities to be funded from the $500,000 designated by the D.C. Appropriations Act.  For example, the plan lists staff time for preparation and presentation of magistrate judge training and upcoming training for family court personnel as a liaison activity. While Family Court officials said that this training involved CFSA social workers, the Mayor’s plan does not clearly state whether social workers will be involved, define the type of training, or describe how these expenditures will support CFSA social worker family court reform activities.
On-Site Coordination of Services and Information. According to the Mayor’s plan the family court liaison will coordinate the activities of representatives from CFSA as well as representatives of other District social service agencies at the Family Court.  However, the plan does not describe how the funded activities involve the use of social workers to implement family court reform.
Furthermore, the Mayor’s plan provides limited information on issues essential to coordinating services.  According to national court associations, an effective approach for establishing and sustaining operational integration among agencies includes (1) establishing interagency policies for coordinating on-site social services; (2) specifying the types of services to be provided by each participating agency; and (3) identifying the financial, human capital, computer, and other resources to support coordinated services. The Mayor’s plan provides limited information on these essential issues. The plan states that agency representatives will be available to the court and that computer support at the court will be provided. However, the plan does not describe planning efforts with the Family Court on related space and facilities requirements, costs associated with service coordination, the types of services that will be provided, or the number of staff that will be on-site.  It does not indicate whether the CFSA staff on-site will include social workers. Family Court officials said that planning on-site services coordination with District offices is in its early phases and that service representatives from District offices will face challenges in identifying and coordinating social services for children and families served by the Family Court.
Border Agreement. The Mayor plans to use $131,000 of the $500,000 designated in the D.C. Appropriations Act for border agreement activities, such as negotiating an agreement with surrounding jurisdictions.  While a border agreement may benefit District efforts to achieve more timely placement of District children in Maryland and Virginia, border agreement activities included in the Mayor’s plan do not specify how CFSA social workers will be involved in the process or how their involvement relates to family court reform.
section_title: Conclusions
paragraphs: Integrating the computer systems of District agencies with those of the Family Court as well as other aspects of family court reform are complex and will take years to complete. Much of the complexity stems from the critical issues upon which successful family court reform depends and the need for disciplined IT management processes to mitigate the risks posed by these issues. This complexity coupled with the multiyear completion timeframe makes planning the computer systems integration and other key elements of court reform difficult. In spite of the difficulty, the Mayor’s plan provides a useful overview of the District’s current health and human services IT environment, the current vision for integrating its health and human services computer systems with those of the Family Court, and how it intends to use funds that were appropriated for planning computer systems integration. However, the plan does not contain important details that, while not explicitly required by the Family Court Act or the fiscal year 2002 D.C. Appropriations Act, would enhance the usefulness of the plan by providing information that would facilitate an assessment of its feasibility and effectiveness. Information on project milestones, for example, could help the District and the Congress assess progress in implementing court reform and serve as an early warning system if a key milestone is not met.
Furthermore, it is not clear in the plan how the $500,000 in appropriated funds are to be used for CFSA’s social workers to implement family court reform, as required by law.  More details regarding the liaison, on-site coordination, and border agreement activities are needed to ensure that appropriated funds are used as Congress intended.
section_title: Recommendations
paragraphs: To keep the Congress fully informed about the District’s progress in implementing court reform, we recommend that the Mayor periodically report to the Congress on the District’s progress in integrating its computer systems with those of the Family Court. These reports should provide milestones, including those associated with completing the essential analyses and addressing the critical issues and disciplined IT management practices discussed in this report, and the District’s progress in achieving them.
To help ensure that the planned expenditures support the purpose designated in the D.C. Appropriations Act, we recommend that the Mayor provide more details to the Congress to show how the $500,000 will be used for social workers to implement family court reform.
section_title: Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
paragraphs: We received written comments on a draft of this report from the City Administrator of the District of Columbia. These comments are in appendix II. The City Administrator generally agreed with our findings related to the Mayor’s integration plan and offered to answer any further questions regarding the use of the $500,000 for CFSA for social workers to implement family court reform. However, the City Administrator did not directly address our recommendations.
Regarding the Mayor’s integration plan, the City Administrator agreed that the successful execution of the plan is contingent on resolving critical issues and implementing disciplined processes. The administrator also said that the District is faced with daunting complexity in planning, designing, building, and implementing the capabilities described in the Mayor’s plan and recognized that it must exercise responsible planning for resources by conducting detailed planning and financial analyses of proposed information system improvements. Accordingly, the City Administrator reported that during the next 6 months the District plans to complete more detailed scope definitions, specification of integration requirements, timelines and milestones, and cost analyses of the planned integration activities.
As for the plans to spend the $500,000, the City Administrator provided information that better explains how some of the activities will involve CFSA’s  social workers. However, there are still some activities for which more detail is needed.  For example, the comments note that the Mayor began cross-agency planning for coordination of services and information and list various related activities.  Two of these activities appear to directly involve social workers—(1) training for CFSA social workers, OCC attorneys and others, and (2) analysis of cases to be transferred to the family court by CFSA social workers.  However, it is still unclear the extent that the other activities—development of the CFSA-OCC pilot and changes to the CFSA court liaison functions—will involve CFSA social workers. The City Administrator also discussed a CFSA and Family Court pilot project designed to assess whether a particular approach to case assignment would shorten the road to permanency for children. This activity was not included in the Mayor’s plan.
As for the border agreement, the comments address three activities included in the Mayor’s plan—negotiating the agreement, staffing, and implementing the agreement. Although the City Administrator stated that senior staff from the agency continues to be personally involved in the negotiations with Maryland officials, the comments do not indicate whether or how social workers are  involved. It would appear that this activity does not directly involve social workers.  Furthermore, according to the comments, the District agreed to fund two positions in Maryland, including one social worker. The City Administrator does not state the nature of the other  position nor does he state that the social worker will be a CFSA social worker.  However, the comments note that the costs of implementing the agreement will include funds to expedite licensing of CFSA social workers in Maryland.
Because the City Administrator did not specifically address our recommendations in his comments, we continue to think it is important that the District keep the Congress informed of its progress in integrating its computer systems with those of the Family Court and that the Mayor provide more detail to show how the appropriated funds will be used for social workers to implement family court reform.
We are sending copies of this report to the Office of Management and Budget, the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring, and the District of Columbia, Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs; and the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia, House Committee on Government Reform. We are also sending copies to the Mayor of the District of Columbia; the Deputy Mayor for Children, Youth, Families, and Elders; the Chief Technology Officer; the Director of the Child and Family Services Agency; the Chief Judge of the Family Court of the District of Columbia Superior Court; and other District agencies. Copies of this report will also be made available to others upon request. In addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov.
If you have any questions about this report, please contact me on (202) 512-8403. Other contacts and staff acknowledgments are listed in appendix III.
section_title: Appendix I: Scope and Methodology
paragraphs: To assess the contents and effectiveness of the District of Columbia Mayor’s plan to integrate the computer systems of District agencies with those of the D.C. Family Court, we reviewed and analyzed the Mayor’s plan. As part of this analysis, we (1) reviewed the requirements for the plan set forth in the Family Court Act and the fiscal year 2002 D.C. Appropriations Act; (2) reviewed our prior reports and IT management best practice guidance; and (3) interviewed appropriate District IT officials, including the Chief Technology Officer and programmatic officials, such as the Deputy Mayor for Children, Youth, Families and Elders. We also interviewed the Director of the D.C. Courts’ information technology division and reviewed documents related to the court’s system development effort, the Integrated Justice Information System. In addition, we obtained comments on the Mayor’s plan from officials of the American Bar Association and the Virginia Supreme Court’s court improvement program.
To analyze the Mayor’s spending plans for integrating computer systems and supporting Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) social workers’ efforts to implement family court reform, we (1) reviewed the District’s spending plans, (2) interviewed and obtained information from officials in the District’s Office of Chief Technology Officer and CFSA, and (3) reviewed legislation related to the $700,000 in federal funds provided in the District’s Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2002. We did not independently verify or audit the cost information provided from District officials. We also interviewed program officials from the Child and Family Services Agency; the Departments of Human Services, Mental Health, and Health; the Office of Corporation Counsel; the Office of the Chief Technology Officer, the Mayor’s office; and District of Columbia Public Schools. In addition, we interviewed court experts in the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, American Bar Association, Council for Court Excellence, and officials from two other states, New Jersey and Virginia, that have undertaken efforts to integrate computer systems of courts with social services.  We also examined documents related to policies of several District social service agencies and the District’s Family Court.
section_title: Appendix II: Comments from the City Administrator of the District of Columbia
section_title: Appendix III: GAO Contacts and Acknowledgments
subsections: section_title: GAO Contacts
section_title: Acknowledgments
paragraphs: The following individuals also made important contributions to this report: Patrick diBattista, Linda Elmore, Maxine Hattery, Linda Lambert, James Rebbe, Norma Samuel, Rachel Seid, and Marcia Washington.
section_title: Related GAO Products
paragraphs: Human Services: Federal Approval and Funding Processes for States’ Information Systems. GAO-02-347T. Washington, D.C.: July 9, 2002.
Foster Care: Recent Legislation Helps States Focus on Finding Permanent Homes for Children, but Long-Standing Barriers Remain. GAO-02-585. Washington, D.C.: June 28, 2002.
D.C. Family Court:  Progress Made Toward Planned Transition and Interagency Coordination, but Some Challenges Remain. GAO-02-797T. Washington, D.C.: June 5, 2002.
D.C. Family Court:  Additional Actions Should Be Taken to Fully Implement Its Transition. GAO-02-584. Washington, D.C.: May 6, 2002 D.C. Family Court: Progress Made Toward Planned Transition, but Some Challenges Remain. GAO-02-660T. Washington, D.C.: April 24, 2002.
D.C. Courts: Disciplined Processes Critical to Successful System Acquisition.  GAO-02-316. Washington, D.C.: February 28, 2002.
District of Columbia: Weaknesses in Financial Management System Implementation.  GAO-01-489. Washington, D.C.: April 30,  2001.
District of Columbia Child Welfare: Long-Term Challenges to Ensuring Children’s Well-Being. GAO-01-191. Washington, D.C.: December 29,  2000.
Foster Care: Status of the District of Columbia’s Child Welfare System Reform Efforts. GAO/T-HEHS-00-109. Washington, D.C.: May 5, 2000.
Foster Care: States’ Early Experiences Implementing the Adoption and Safe Families Act. GAO/HEHS-00-1. Washington, D.C.: December 22, 1999.
District of Columbia: The District Has Not Adequately Planned for and Managed Its New Personnel and Payroll System. GAO/AIMD-00-19. Washington, D.C.: December 17, 1999.
District of Columbia: Software Acquisition Processes for A New Financial Management System. GAO/AIMD-98-88. Washington, D.C.: April 30, 1998.