BILL NUMBER: S8044

SPONSOR: MAYER
 
TITLE OF BILL:

An act to amend the social services law, in relation to citizen review
panels

 
PURPOSE:

To expand and regionalize the citizen review panels that oversee child
protective services cases.

 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:

Section 1. Amends Subdivision 1 of section 371-b of the social services
law to establish one citizens review panel in each of the ten economic
development regions in the state instead of the minimum of three
currently in law.

Section 2 sets the effective date.

              

 
JUSTIFICATION:

Under currently law, there are a minimum of three citizen review panels
in New York State to ensure that New York State complies with the feder-
al Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment At. The Citizens Review Panels
review policies and procedures of local and state agencies and when
appropriate evaluate how matters were handled in individual cases.

The law requires subcommittees for each Borough in New York City but
does not specify how the rest of the state is broken up among the mini-
mum of three panel. Currently, the NYC panel oversees New York City, the
Eastern panel oversees Albany, Broome, Cayuga, Chenango, Clinton, Colum-
bia, Cortland, Delaware, Dutchess, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Greene,
Hamilton, Herkimer, Jefferson, Lewis, Madison, Montgomery, Nassau, Onei-
da, Onondaga, Orange, Oswego, Otsego, Putnam, Rensselaer, Rockland,
Saratoga, Schenectady, Schoharie, St. Lawrence, Suffolk, Sullivan,
Tioga, Tompkins, Ulster, Warren, Washington, Westchester, and the West-
ern panel oversees Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Chemung, Erie,
Genesee, Livingston, Monroe, Niagara, Ontario, Orleans, Schuyler, Sene-
ca, Steuben, Wayne, Wyoming, Yates.

This bill would effectively split the Western Region into three regions
and the Eastern region into six regions allowing for each region to have
no more than eight counties that are covered, instead of the 40 counties
currently covered by the Eastern Region.

As the panels are all volunteer, the costs to the state for additional
panels will be minimal but by expanding the number of panels each panel
will be able to give more localized and individualized attention to
child protective services matters honoring the federal requirements and
creating a more manageable workload for each panel.

 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

New bill

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
Minimal

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect on the ninetieth day after it shall have
become a law.