SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WAND) – With DCFS and Director Marc Smith under fire, Republicans have been calling for his resignation.
This past week, Gov. JB Pritzker responded to those criticisms pointing the finger right back at the GOP.
“When I came to office DCFS had been defunded,” the governor said, pointing to the previous administration under Bruce Rauner, which had eliminated hundreds of beds for potential placements.
“Five-hundred residential beds. You can’t snap your fingers and put those back. It takes years to build back residential beds," he said.
Smith has been cited for contempt nine times in recent months for failing to find appropriate care for children in DCFS care. House Republican leader Jim Durkin blamed Pritzker for failing to deal with the problem, saying Smith should resign. Pritzker shot back pointing to Republicans who have voted against recent budgets that have added funds to DCFS, noting all nine children involved in the contempt citations were quickly placed in residential settings.
“Each one of the cases we have actually found residential beds for each of those cases. Even though those are literally the most severe cases of psychiatric need,” Pritzker said.
