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BILL # SB 1174 |
TITLE: DCS; intake
hotline; case history |
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SPONSOR: Werner |
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PREPARED BY: Maggie Rocker |
STATUS: Senate Engrossed |
The bill would require the Department of Child Safety's (DCS) central intake hotline to produce a single report containing the full history of a child and that child's siblings who have been the subject of prior calls or investigations. The bill also requires the hotline specialist to review the narrative of every call received for that child from the previous 90 days and to use that information to determine if an allegation meets the criteria for a DCS report.
Estimated Impact
We estimate the bill will generate additional IT costs to the extent Guardian, DCS' case management system, does not currently aggregate prior calls into a single report for hotline specialists. However, we cannot estimate the fiscal impact in advance without agency input.
DCS has not responded to our request for their perspective.
Analysis
Our estimate assumes the following:
1) DCS operates a 24/7 centralized intake hotline accepting communications regarding suspected child abuse and neglect. Intake specialists determine if the allegation meets the criteria for a report, which is then transmitted to the appropriate unit for investigation. Each intake, regardless of whether it meets the criteria for a report, is logged into Guardian. Both statute and current DCS policy instruct hotline specialists to identify and locate previous intakes and reports upon receipt of a communication, which may be considered in determining the appropriate next step. We understand that hotline specialists must currently manually search Guardian for a family's history. As a result, we think there could be additional costs enabling the system to quickly generate a single report for hotline workers to review.
3/9/2026