Audit Finds Problems With State Adoption Program

The State Auditor is critical of the state’s Child Adoption Program. Auditor Claire McCaskill says it’s taking too long to get kids out of foster care and into adoptive homes, adding the system for terminating parental rights lacks uniformity, which she says leads to delays. In short, she finds the program is incompetently administered. And, she says she’s frustrated by the Social Services Department claim that the database problems won’t be fixed for more than a year. But the State Social Services Director, Gary Sherman, says improvements already have been made, and the database that tracks case loads and adoption progress has been improved.