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Five hundred Department of Children and Families employees are losing their jobs due to state budget cuts. The layoffs come as DCF searches for answers in child death cases that happened on the department’s watch. As Whitney Ray tells us, child advocates say now is not the time to cut.

The warning signals were sounded, but they weren’t loud enough to save the life of 13 month old Ezekiel Mathis. Mathis died from wounds investigators say were inflicted by his mother’s boyfriend.

Abuse had been reported, but the attorney general’s office had authority over the case, and choose to keep Ezekiel and his mom united.

Now the Department of Children and Families is asking for all questionable cases to be brought before their investigators. But they’ll be taking on the extra work with a lighter staff.

Because of state budget cuts, 500 DCF employees will lose their jobs next month.

“People who directly relate to clients and act as first line responders for families and children in need, we are not going to touch those positions,” said DCF spokesman Joe Follick.

“We’re trying to talk investigators and other front line workers repeatedly to say how can we make your job easier, how can we make it more efficient,” said Follick.

The department says the cuts will have no impact on its child protection services, but children’s advocates say that’s not good enough. They say the front line needs to be beefed up and point to a dead of a south Florida girl as evidence that the department needs more staff.

10 year old Nubia Barahona was killed in February, after reports of abuse by her adoptive parents made it to DCF administrators.

“That was at an administrative level, at a supervisory level. I don’t know how you are going to improve that if you are reducing the number of people who can participate in that supervision,” said Woodall.

In response to the Barahona death DCF has added 80 case workers. The layoffs will be spread through out the state and finalized by the end of June. Many of the positions eliminated will be at three state mental hospitals in Gainesville, Chattahoochee, and Macclenny.