Kentucky State Auditor Allison Ball filed a lawsuit against Governor Andy Beshear and the Cabinet for Health and Family Services in an effort to gain access to a state database that houses case information on elder and child abuse.
Ball’s office became the new home for the Office of the Ombudsman, the investigative branch for the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, which was run previously from inside the cabinet.
But during the transition, Ball found out the iTwist database, used to store case information on elder and child abuse, wouldn’t be accessible outside of the cabinet.
Ball said before July 1, the ombudsman had full access and the job cannot done without full access.
The issue is top of mind for state officials. It has been nearly two years since workers began removing some troubled kids from their homes to temporarily live in government buildings because there are not enough foster homes or residential treatment facility beds available.
Since then, those placements have continued. State data obtained in public records requests show 144 children had spent at least one night at a hotel or state office space from July 2022 to July 2023.
And from then until February 1 of this year, 137 more kids stayed in those places for a night or more, amounting to 281 children in less than two years.
The cabinet has fought a Louisville judge’s ruling that unsealed documents from a particular case and testimony from state officials that show the situation is far more problematic than officials previously revealed.
A spokesperson for the Cabinet for Health and Family Services said, in the month of August, no children have had to stay the night at the L&N building in Louisville. In a written statement Friday, the spokesperson said Beshear supports changing the law in the next legislative session in order to give Ball full access.
The auditor’s office said the cabinet offered partial documents on certain cases if the ombudsman could provide the name and other identifying information about the child. Information the office doesn’t have access to in the first place because in Kentucky dependence, neglect and abuse cases are sealed.
Ball said full access would allow an investigation into the foster kids forced to stay at the L&N Building in downtown Louisville and how 8-month-old Miya Rudd was found dead after the cabinet knew she tested positive for methamphetamine in her umbilical cord.
Ball’s office filed the lawsuit Monday against Beshear’s office and the cabinet to force access. But Beshear said it is not that simple, and the current law doesn’t allow for the cabinet to release the sensitive information.
Beshear said the General Assembly can amend the law in the upcoming session in January, but Ball argued it’s an urgent issue.
Source: WDRB
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