More progress needed on Valva reforms

In October 2020, the state's Office of Children and Family Services issued an administrative directive to all county commissioners of social services agencies concerning their responsibility for the "swift and competent" investigation of reports of child abuse and maltreatment. The new approach called the "Blind Removal Process" requires the deletion of all demographic and identifying information, to guard against subconscious bias when a committee reviews whether a child should be removed from a parent or guardian.

It came eight months after 8-year-old Thomas Valva died of hypothermia in the garage of the Center Moriches home of his father, an NYPD officer. Michael Valva is now serving a 25-year sentence for his son's murder. Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine said the Child Protective Services decision not to remove Thomas Valva from his home — despite numerous reports of abuse from school officials and others — was probably influenced by his father's position.

Astoundingly, the 2020 state directive was still not adopted by Suffolk until after Romaine was elected in 2023 and hired John Imhof, an experienced social services executive from Nassau County, last May. When Imhof took over the troubled agency, he immediately implemented the blind removal protocol. That is unsurprising since it was Imhof who started such a system in Nassau in 2011, upon which the state modeled its policy. 

Suffolk's failure to adopt the state policy even after Thomas' death is another example of the county's failed oversight of its CPS program until now. Romaine, whose grandson had been a classmate of Thomas and who campaigned on a promise of fixing the agency, held a news conference last week to highlight the new removal policy as well as other markers of improved compliance with guidelines by CPS.

But more needs to be done, as Romaine noted. Suffolk's CPS workers still carry too many cases at once because of staffing shortages. One reason is the noncompetitive salary of $60,000 compared with what can be earned in the private sector. The county legislature is still waiting for a report from an outside consultant on new salary scales; as soon as the recommendations are made the legislature must reopen the budget process. Staffing social services is a priority.

We were reminded again on Wednesday that CPS workers do difficult jobs. A North Merrick man was charged with terrorism for trying to blow up Nassau County's social services building in Uniondale because he claimed CPS workers were responsible for revoking his visitation rights with his children. 

And state lawmakers have yet to approve a proposed law recommended by a Suffolk grand jury that would allow reports of abuse dismissed by CPS workers as "unfounded" to be used in criminal prosecutions; such reports were barred in the Valva case. After what happened to Thomas Valva, we must make sure another child doesn't die due to an addled bureaucracy.