Fresno County Orders Independent Audit of Social Services Department

A retired social worker's allegations that Fresno County's child welfare agency has been overriding frontline staff to return children to dangerous homes prompted the Board of Supervisors to unanimously order an independent audit of the Department of Social Services on April 7.

The 5-0 vote directed County Administrative Officer Paul Nerland to hire an outside auditor and report findings to the board. Nerland said he would also engage the California Department of Social Services to assist. The audit was co-sponsored by Board Chair Garry Bredefeld and Vice Chair Luis Chavez, who emerged from a private meeting with DSS leaders and retired social worker Lorraine Ramirez convinced that outside scrutiny was warranted.

Ramirez had first raised her concerns in February, appearing at a board meeting to announce her retirement and air accumulated grievances. Her central allegation: DSS leadership has been rubber-stamping family reunifications even when frontline social workers objected, in some cases returning children to abusive or neglectful homes. After that appearance, she received what she called "a frenzy" of correspondence from current and former county workers corroborating her claims. At the April 7 meeting, visibly emotional, she told the board: "My heart is overjoyed that all of those…current and past employees will now have a voice through this audit. The lives of our most vulnerable in this county can now be heard loud and clear."

Bredefeld wants the audit to include input from local schools, arguing teachers and district liaisons carry unique insight into child welfare cases. Chavez, a licensed foster parent for seven years and a member of the county's Foster Care Standards and Oversight Committee, wants the review to assess whether the county's model produces the best safety net for children and adequately supports families after a child exits foster care. He also called for the county counsel's office to independently monitor decisions being made for children in the system while the audit proceeds.

DSS Director Sanja Bugay, appointed in April 2022 following a prior foster care scandal, said she welcomed the review. "When the audits are done well, we actually hear the good stuff we're doing," she told GV Wire. She told the board that caseloads per worker dropped from roughly 40 to fewer than 20 and that the county recently approved 35 additional hires. She acknowledged a 14% vacancy rate but said it was intentional given declining workload, and pointed to the county's performance against state averages on maltreatment and re-entry rates. She acknowledged that management of In-Home Supportive Services, which serves elderly and disabled residents, had fallen short.

Other voices drew a sharper picture. Denise Wyatt, executive director of the Family Healing Center, alleged the department had drifted from child protection toward prevention. Danielle Dela Torre, operations manager at North Star Family Center, said referrals had dropped sharply, with parents completing only "the bare minimum" before children are returned and the cycle restarting within three months. A current IHSS employee identified as Morton told the board that clients cannot reach their social workers: "There's no standard of getting back to them."

The department's history amplifies the stakes. In October 2021, The Fresno Bee reported that foster children were sleeping on conference room floors and tabletops at a downtown Fresno DSS office while awaiting placement, a story that drew national attention and led directly to Bugay's appointment. Now, with some of those same workers again raising alarms, Bredefeld framed the coming review plainly: "We must be committed to having accountability and having positive outcomes for these children.