The state’s child protection agency is making slow progress hiring more staff and has yet to begin an initiative announced weeks ago to shrink the backlog of open abuse and neglect investigations, according to a new agency report.

The Division for Children, Youth and Families painted a picture with little change in a report presented Wednesday, showing an agency where workers still face crushing caseloads and staff turnover remains high.

Gov. Chris Sununu and state lawmakers have named reforming DCYF a priority, but advocates have said progress is coming slowly.

More than two years have passed since 3-year-old Brielle Gage was killed under agency watch.

Four months have passed since an outside review found the agency doesn’t have enough staff to keep up with incoming reports of child abuse and neglect.

And several weeks have passed since the agency announced a plan to start paying workers overtime to tackle a backlog of overdue cases numbering in the thousands.

“While the department is taking steps, the urgency isn’t there,” said John DeJoie, with Child and Family Services of New Hampshire.

Though DCYF has made a push to add more workers, 24 of the agency’s 116 positions are not filled, according to the Wednesday report. More than one-fifth of staff was in training last month, leaving only 65 workers to respond to child maltreatment reports – far short of the 90-person minimum recommended by outside review.

In March, DCYF caseloads greatly exceeded the national standard of 12 reports per worker. In the Concord office, child protection workers each had an average of 131 open investigations, compared to 124 per worker in Laconia and 66 per staffer in Claremont. It’s not clear whether those numbers represent an increase or a drop in caseloads because the most recent report includes data only from March 2017.

The agency’s plan to pay workers overtime to help cut down on the backlog of open investigations isn’t expected to begin until Friday. The initiative was announced in early April, but couldn’t be implemented until the beginning of the pay period, agency leaders said. Since then, the backlog has grown to more than 2,900 overdue investigations, meaning they haven’t been closed or acted on within the 60-day limit.

“It’s a concern,” said Rep. Skip Berrien, a Democrat on the Special Joint Committee on DCYF Services. “I think we all wish things would happen a lot faster than they are, but this is bureaucracy.”

Health and Human Services Commissioner Jeffrey Meyers has added nearly two dozen positions to DCYF, though not all have been filled. Some district offices are short-staffed.

In Manchester, six of 15 positions are open. In Concord, four of 13 spots are empty. In the interim, Meyers said, supervisors are helping out and investigating reports of child abuse and neglect.

“We obviously are moving aggressively to try to bring workers on. We have got 22 in training, so we have made a dent in this,” he said. “We’re obviously extending our efforts to make sure we staff up completely.”

Meyers said he requested that the Department of Administrative Services review the pay scale for child protection workers, but no recommendation has been made.

Staff turnover at DCYF remains high. Between 2014 and 2016, it was 50 percent and reached 70 percent in some district offices, said interim agency director Maureen Ryan.

“When we get to the right size staffing-wise, we will not see this level of turnover,” she said.

Meyers said the state is still in the process of recruiting a permanent DCYF leader. It’s not clear when one will be named.

The report was presented at a meeting of the special legislative task force on DCYF, which is weighing a number of bills meant to improve child protection. One, filed by Republican Sen. Jeb Bradley, seeks to strengthen the state’s neglect laws and make child protection a priority over preserving family unity. The task force requested DCYF provide the same staffing report each month.

(Allie Morris can be reached at 369-3307 or amorris@cmonitor.com.)