ARIZONA
DEPARTMENT
OF ECONOMIC
SECURITY

SFY 2015-2019
FIVE-YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN
PROMOTING THE SAFETY, WELL-BEING, AND
SELF-SUFFICENCY OF CHILDREN, ADULTS AND FAMILIES.
APACHE

MO HAVE

GOALS:
STRENGTHEN
INDIVIDUALS
AND FAMILIES

COCONINO

INCREASE
SELF-SUFFICIENCY

NAVAJO

COLLABORATE WITH
COMMUNITIES TO
INCREASE CAPACITY

YAVAPAI

LA PAZ

GILA
MARICOPA

GREENLEE
GRAHAM

PINAL

Y UMA

PIMA

COCHISE
SANTA
CRUZ

IMPROVE
ACCOUNTABILITY
THROUGH ACTIVE
PERFORMANCEMONITORING
AND INCREASED
TRANSPARENCY
IMPROVE OUTCOMES
FOR ARIZONANS BY
CREATING A
PERSON-CENTRIC
HUMAN SERVICES
SYSTEM

CLARENCE H. CARTER,
DIRECTOR

Janice K. Brewer
Governor

Clarence H. Carter
Director

January 1, 2014

Dear Arizonans:
It is my pleasure to provide you with the Arizona Department of Economic Security’s Five-Year
Strategic Plan for fiscal years 2015-2019. We look forward to engaging with the community to
accomplish the work described in the plan.
While the economic environment in Arizona has gradually improved, vulnerable individuals and
families rely on the Department for life-saving protective services and essential economic
support. The Department has made important improvements in how we deliver benefits, goods
and services to vulnerable individuals and families. The Plan outlines several of these on-going
improvement efforts including cost-saving process improvements, expanded community
collaborations, enhanced transparency and increased accountability.
From a higher level viewpoint, the Department is leading a comprehensive and integrated effort
to reformulate the public safety net. We are working to transform the safety net from one with a
primary emphasis on the effective delivery of benefits, goods and services to one with a primary
emphasis on enhancing the capacity of its consumers to become their highest functioning selves
and reducing their dependency. The Department attained significant milestones during 2013
including the launch of the transformation initiative and engagement of influential local leaders
from various sectors and national partners essential to building the restructuring of the system.
The Plan provides further detail regarding the need for this transformational effort and the
exciting work ahead.
I look forward to receiving your comments, questions and partnership as we move forward to the
betterment of Arizona.

Sincerely,

Clarence H. Carter
Director

1717 W. Jefferson, S/C 010A, Phoenix, AZ 85007  P.O. Box 6123, Phoenix, AZ 85005
Telephone (602) 542-5678  Fax (602) 542-5339  www.azdes.gov

Arizona Department of Economic Security
FIVE‐YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN
SFY 2015‐2019

Mission:
To promote the safety, well-being and self-sufficiency of children, adults, and families.

Description:
The Department of Economic Security (DES) is an integrated human services agency that
provides critical protective and assistance services each month to more than one million of
Arizona's children, adults and families.
Together, DES’ programs enhance the safety, well-being and self-sufficiency of Arizonans.
Some of these programs include: child protective services; children’s services to provide families
the tools they need to care for their children; child care assistance for working parents; adult
protective services; domestic violence shelter and supports; social adjustment and selfsufficiency benefits and services for refugees and other humanitarian immigrants of interest to
the United States; early intervention services for infants and toddlers with developmental delays;
home and community-based services for individuals with developmental disabilities and older
adults; independent living support programs for both seniors and young adults; unemployment
insurance; employment assistance including vocational rehabilitation and job training; financial
assistance; nutrition assistance; child support services; and medical assistance eligibility.
The Department is working to move beyond simply delivering services to partnering with our
community to help individuals and families gain the tools they need to increase their
independence by becoming self-sufficient. As a result, DES recognizes the interconnectedness
and interdependence between its services and community resources. Therefore, the Department
works closely with a network of faith- and community-based partners, other state agencies, local
governments, Tribal Nations, as well as federal agencies that oversee Department programs, in
the delivery of services to the people of Arizona.

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Department Strategic Issues:
Issue 1: Economic and Social Conditions
While Arizona’s economy has improved in the wake of the Great Recession, the recovery has
been slow and Arizona and the nation continue to be impacted by national and global economic
uncertainty. As a result, Arizona continues to see a substantial increase in poverty. According to
the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011 Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic
supplement, 17.2 percent of Arizonans live in poverty, up from 14.3 percent in 2007, and one in
four children in Arizona are living below the federal poverty level. In 2013, the federal poverty
level for a family of four is $23,550 per year. In addition to the impact of economic conditions,
social conditions in the state also affect the need for Department services. As more people have
children later in life, for example, a growing segment of the population is raising children while
simultaneously caring for aging parents.
Families are seeking assistance to meet basic needs such as housing, food, and health care, where
in many cases they had not previously. As one example of the rising demand for Department
services, from fiscal year 2007 to fiscal year 2013, Arizonans enrolled in the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) increased by 109 percent, from 537,000 to over 1.1
million, or over 17 percent of the state’s population. Recently, economic conditions have begun
to stabilize, and after reaching a peak in October 2011, demand in Arizona for SNAP has leveled
off. It is important to note further, however, that rising cases over the years has meant an
increased possibility for eligibility determination errors and fraud and abuse in the system. In an
effort to reduce eligibility errors and contain fraud and abuse, the Department has requested a
$4.6 million General Fund increase in fiscal year 2015 to maintain current eligibility
determination staffing levels.
Over the last year, the Department has also experienced rapid growth in the number of reports of
child abuse and neglect. In fiscal year 2013, the number of reports of abuse and neglect grew by
nine percent. This increase is likely caused by a variety of factors, among them rising poverty
and increased attention paid to child abuse cases in local media.
The rising number of reports of alleged child abuse and neglect, in turn, creates an increase in the
number of investigations performed by Child Protective Services (CPS). In fiscal year 2013,
over 40,000 investigations were conducted. While the proportion of investigations that result in
a child being placed in foster care is virtually unchanged, the increase in investigations has
driven an increase in the number of children that must be placed in out-of-home care. This
number has currently topped 14,632 children for the first time and has saturated the
Department’s capacity to place children in family foster homes, resulting in the increased use of
more expensive and less preferred congregate care settings. Because of the rapid growth of
reports and children in the CPS system, the Department has requested $50.6 million to fund

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additional CPS staff to keep up with caseload growth as well as to fund the placement costs for
the children entering the system.
In 2012, the Legislature created and provided limited funding for the Office of Child Welfare
Investigations, tasked with investigating CPS Hotline reports with potential criminal conduct. In
fiscal year 2013, the Department flagged almost 11,000 such reports. The Department is
requesting $8.75 million over two years for additional staff to fully investigate these reports.
In addition to the growth in child welfare, the Department has seen caseloads grow in a variety of
programs. From fiscal year 2012 to fiscal year 2013, the number of reports of vulnerable adult
abuse, neglect, or financial exploitation to Adult Protective Services increased by 27 percent.
While the Department did anticipate caseload growth in Adult Protective Services (APS) in SFY
2013, the rate of growth has exceeded our expectations, thereby stressing our staffing and APS
infrastructure. As a result, we have updated our caseload growth for SFY 13 and believe that the
growth will continue in 2014 at an estimated 20 percent and at about 10 percent in fiscal year
2015. The Department has requested an increase of $5.2 million in fiscal year 2015 to fund
additional APS caseworkers to keep up with the growth and maintain a manageable caseload per
caseworker.
Arizona has also seen an increase in the number of individuals seeking assistance in finding
employment. Due to impacts from the economy, more people have registered in the
Department’s automated labor exchange system, AZJobConnection (www.azjobconnection.gov).
During calendar year 2012, there was a monthly average of 16,762 individuals registered in the
automated system. As of June 2013, there was a monthly average of 18,469 individuals
registered in the automated system. This reflects a ten percent increase in the number of
individuals seeking assistance finding jobs.
In addition to the above, the Department foresees the exhaustion of the Long Term Care System
Fund balance. The fund’s revenue is earned through the capitated system of payments developed
by the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS), approved by the federal
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and is used to provide services to members
of the Arizona Long-Term Care System (ALTCS). Pursuant to the terms of the 1115 waiver that
governs Arizona’s Medicaid programs and the ALTCS program, the State assumes all liability
for cost overages above the agreed capitation. In addition, all excess revenue earned by the
program above the actual cost is available for use by the State. In both fiscal years 2013 and
2014, the Legislature made appropriations from the Long Term Care System Fund’s balance to
fund caseload growth to maintain services levels that otherwise would have received General
Fund support. Moving into fiscal year 2015, this fund balance will no longer be able to support
the appropriation, so the Department has requested a General Fund increase of $56.4 million to
maintain service levels.

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Goal 1: Strengthen Individuals and Families
Building on the support systems in families and communities, the Department strives to
ensure that children grow up in nurturing environments and that individuals, children and
families experience conditions that allow them to achieve an increased quality of life in a
safe setting.

Goal 2: Increase Self-Sufficiency
The Department provides services to individuals and families to meet their basic needs and
seeks a construct in which this assistance, along with any necessary employment-supports,
serves as a bridge to increased self-sufficiency and maximum independence.

Strategies:
1. Assist older and at-risk adults, individuals with disabilities, and youth aging out
of foster care to live independently.
DES provides a wide range of support for independent living. Arizona’s
Developmental Disabilities program is consistently ranked as one of the best in
the nation for assisting people to reside in the least restrictive environment
possible. In addition, 22 percent of children 17 or older and 50 percent of children
18 or older who have been removed from their homes live independently.
In SFY 2013 the number of reports of vulnerable adult abuse, neglect and/or
exploitation increased by 27 percent from SFY 2012; this increase has strained the
ability of the Adult Protective Services (APS) system to provide needed
supportive services to this population.
2. Safely reduce both the number of children entering the foster care system and the
number of children who remain in the foster care system by developing safe
alternatives, including timely permanency.
In the six month period ending March 2012, DES finalized 1,270 adoptions. As a
result, adoption subsidy payments, which help adoptive parents of special needs
children afford the services they require, increased 11.6 percent in fiscal year
2012. For fiscal year 2015, the Department has requested funding to keep pace
with the continued growth in adoption.
The Division of Children, Youth and Families has completed refresher trainings
on the facilitated Team Decision Making process to ensure decision making is
strengths based and family focused, and has partnered with Casey Family
Programs to implement Permanency Roundtables in CPS regions across the state
to assist with case reviews and moving children toward permanency. A team of

5

staff is also working to streamline the process for children who are ready to be
adopted to achieve permanency quicker.
3. Safely reduce the number of children in congregate care and place children in
family-like settings (kinship care and family foster homes).
The Department is engaged in many initiatives to increase the capacity of
available family foster homes and place children in other family-like settings. In
order to best utilize available resources to target areas where family foster homes
are necessary and potentially available, the Department is implementing several
strategies. Demographic data on current foster families has been utilized to
analyze foster care recruitment success by demographic market segment. This
analysis has identified the market segments most likely to become foster parents,
allowing the Department and foster care agencies to target their outreach to those
most likely to respond. Geographic information systems software is being used to
combine foster home capacity data with child removal data to create maps
illustrating where the need for foster homes is greatest. Additionally, the
Department has dramatically expanded its partnership with faith and communitybased groups to recruit foster families. This has resulted in outreach and events
sponsored by the Republic Media Group’s A Season for Sharing, the Arizona
Diamondbacks, the Rotary Club, and nearly two dozen churches and faith-based
organizations across the state. To assist their efforts, the Department has engaged
a private marketing company that has volunteered, on a pro bono basis, to develop
recruiting materials for use by community-based groups. The Department is
partnering with foster care agencies and applicants to identify and eliminate
barriers to qualified applicants in the licensing process. For example, based on
applicant feedback, a training course has been developed that, while providing the
same training, allows applicants to complete the course in six weeks rather than
ten weeks. Lastly, an expedited training program for families who wish to be
relicensed after having left the foster care system has been created.
The Department is also working to increase foster family retention. Retention
solutions include the creation of a toll-free Foster Parent support telephone line,
development of “mentor families” to provide support to new foster families, and
events to recognize current Foster Parents and recruit new families. Additionally,
increased staffing to handle the workload will allow CPS to better support foster
families by more frequently visiting children in foster care and reducing the
number of families exiting the foster care system.

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4. Provide core safety net services to stabilize families as a first step toward
enabling them to achieve maximum employability and self-sufficiency.
The Department’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Cash
Assistance program provides a minimal payment to families with children and,
with a requirement that adult recipients participate in work-related activities,
helps sustain families as they progress toward employability and self-sufficiency.
Cash Assistance is time limited to 24 months of payments received solely in
Arizona and to no more than 60 months of payments received in Arizona or any
other state.
Another crucial element in helping families achieve self-sufficiency is the child
care subsidy program, which helps cover the cost of child care to enable parents
to work to provide for their families. The Department currently has a waiting list
of almost 7,000 children who are unable to receive child care services as there are
not sufficient resources to provide services to all those who qualify.
5. Provide employment-related services and assistance supports to vulnerable
populations, such as older adults, individuals with disabilities, refugees,
economically disadvantaged youth and adults, veterans, and youth who have aged
out of foster care.
The Department partners with local entities to administer the Workforce
Investment Act (WIA) program, funded through the federal WIA grant, which
provides services to youth and adults, in addition to programs targeting dislocated
workers, to help them become job-ready and to find employment. In addition, the
Department operates the Employment Service (ES) program to assist individuals
who are unemployed, underemployed, or seeking better employment
opportunities.
The WIA and ES Programs provide “priority service” to qualified veterans and
their spouses. This means that a veteran or their spouse receives priority over
non-veterans for employment services, training and access to other resources.
Utilizing federal funding through the U.S. Department of Labor, the Department
provides employment related services to veterans. The veterans’ programs that
are available through DES are known as the Local Veterans’ Employment
Representatives and the Disabled Veterans Outreach Program. Staff within these
programs provides a variety of services throughout Arizona.
The Department’s Unemployment Insurance (UI) Program provides a measure of
security through financial assistance to the individual worker when
unemployment occurs. The UI Program pays benefits to individuals who become
unemployed through no fault of their own. Benefits are funded through

7

unemployment insurance taxes paid by employers which enable individuals to
receive benefits while seeking other employment.
The Department operates employment and independent living programs to assist
in removing barriers for refugees and other eligible beneficiaries under the
Refugee Act, older Arizonans, and individuals with disabilities. In addition, the
Department assists clients with developmental disabilities in obtaining
employment when it is the most beneficial path for the client. The Department’s
Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD) provides a range of services and
supports including center-based vocational training, community integrated group
supported employment and competitive job placement with an emphasis on the
job supports as needed to facilitate the individual’s ongoing employment success.
The DES DDD is a member of the State Employment Leadership Network
(SELN), a membership-based group of state developmental disability (DD)
agencies committed to improving employment outcomes for people with DD.
The Division assisted in developing and continues to support the use of AZ
Disability Benefits 101 (AZDB101), an online resource developed and funded by
the Rehabilitation Services Administration within DERS. The AZDB101 is
designed to help individuals with disabilities make informed decisions about
going to work by assisting them to plan for employment, learn how work and
benefits (cash, medical, etc.) go together and how their individual benefits might
be impacted by work income. In addition, the Division holds a leadership role
with the Arizona Community of Practice on Transition (AzCoPT). AzCoPT is a
collaborative of state agencies and stakeholder groups with a shared interest in
improving school and post-secondary outcomes for youth and young adults with
disabilities, with a primary emphasis on college and career outcomes. The
Division, jointly with the DES Rehabilitation Services Administration/Vocational
Rehabilitation, is implementing a system of coordinated planning and
collaboration to ensure a smooth and successful transition of DDD eligible
persons in the foster care system to meaningful, gainful, and sustained
employment, education and community living.
6. Reduce the number of families on Cash Assistance by increasing self-sufficiency
through increased employment placements.
The Department oversees the Jobs Program, which assists current and former
TANF Cash Assistance recipients in preparing to enter the workforce and in
finding employment. Despite reductions in the number of job participants
receiving cash assistance, in fiscal year 2013, over 7,098 clients in the
Department’s Jobs Program were placed in new employment positions, an
increase from 6,628 in fiscal year 2012.
7. Engage our customers and make child support a reliable source of income for the
families of custodial parents we serve.

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The Department strives to excel in making child support collections a reliable
source of income for custodial parents and providing support to our customers for
the self-sufficiency of Arizona families. DES has maintained the level of Title
IV-D related child support collections at $360 million annually over the last four
fiscal years while maintaining a high level of program cost effectiveness. To
improve work going forward, the Department is striving to engage our customers
more by taking a holistic approach to understanding the challenges our customers
are going through and seeking to assist with internal and external resources to
help non-custodial and custodial parents meet their responsibilities and
obligations.

Issue 2: Collaboration with Community and Faith-Based Partners
The Department believes that making Arizona stronger by ensuring the safety, well-being and
self-sufficiency of children, adults, and families is the responsibility of all Arizonans. While
DES and other public entities have important roles to play, individuals, communities, and faithbased organizations have equally important roles. As a result, in addition to providing the
services that the Department administers, it is important that DES partner with individuals,
communities, and organizations to leverage the full range of supports and assistance Arizona has
to offer on behalf of the vulnerable and those in need.

Goal 3: Collaborate with Communities to Increase Capacity
The Department seeks significantly expanded, focused partnerships that build the capacity
of communities and maximize the impact of shared resources to strengthen individuals and
increase their self-sufficiency.

Strategies:
1. Work in partnership with Tribal Nations to strengthen individuals and families.
The Department has a strong commitment to ongoing collaboration with Arizona
Tribal Nations. The agency has intergovernmental agreements with many Arizona
Tribal Nations to provide services to tribal members, including services for the
aging, family support services, information technology hosting and support
services for child support, substance abuse treatment, and child care services. In
addition, through annual appropriation by the Legislature, the Department
provides funds for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
maintenance of effort to tribes that operate their own TANF programs.

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2. Increase collaboration with community partners and stakeholders to provide core
safety net services.
The Department has an initiative that identifies community talent that can connect
community resources to work in partnership with the Department to address
customer needs. These Community Liaisons are experts in the need area being
addressed and in creating community connections. One example is connecting
community resources in support of supervised visitation for Child Protective
Service (CPS) cases and the CPS staff that manages these cases. Community
resources have adopted 50 rooms that provide an appropriate setting for regular
supervised visitations between the child and parents. The visitations further the
goal of successful family reunification. These new community connections offer
on-going support for CPS staff as they serve these children and their families.
DES has also joined with national and local entities to hold large-scale, one-day
events that connect families in need with clothing, food, medical attention, and
other resources. HopeFest Tucson, held in Kino Veterans Memorial Stadium on
October 27, 2012, served approximately 18,000 people. HopeFest Phoenix, held
at Chase Field on April 14, 2012 reached an estimated 15,000 people and
HopeFest Phoenix reached approximately 20,000 at Chase Field on April 20,
2013. Once a year DES joins with local and national organizations for the “Día
del Campesino” which is held in San Luis, Arizona. More than 5,000 farm
workers and their families come to “Día del Campesino” and benefit from the free
health exams throughout the morning. In addition to the health services they also
receive free clothing and information regarding many areas affecting their living
and working conditions such as crop dusting, housing, and education.
The Department has developed a robust Volunteer Engagement Center for
connecting members of the caring community with the needs of Arizona’s Safety
Net. Examples include calling on the community to create and support the new
“Children’s Heart Gallery” – highlighting Arizona children in need of forever
families, and the “Arizona Blue Ribbon – Celebrating Foster Families”, which is a
foster family retention strategy.
3. Engage Faith-based Organizations as partners to promote the safety, well-being,
and self-sufficiency of individuals and families.
The ArizonaSERVES initiative, with the assistance of DES, is helping to connect
more faith-based organizations with the systems of care that meet the needs of
Arizona’s most vulnerable citizens. Building on previous success, increased
community effort is being applied to grow the capacity for foster and adopted care

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for children and also to support local child protective service staff with family
reunification efforts.
The Department has taken a catalytic and active role to increase the capacity of
Open Table a faith-based model for bringing the resources and talents of
congregational members into healthy, mentoring relationships with individuals
and families in need – moving with them from poverty to economic stability. The
Department supports this community-based person centric model for addressing
the needs of individuals in need of economic safety support.
4. Work closely with the business community to identify opportunities for employing
at-risk individuals.
The Department continues to strengthen its relationship with the Arizona
Commerce Authority and is working collaboratively to identify job opportunities
for low-income Arizonans. This important work will provide the Commerce
Authority with information regarding the unique employment needs of this
vulnerable segment of the Arizona workforce.
In addition, the DES Employment Service program provides many employment
services to both employees and employers, including recruitment, screening, and
referral of qualified job applicants, as well as job fairs, workshops and seminars to
assist employers in identifying work opportunities for individuals receiving
Department services. Over the past year, the Department hosted or participated in
88 job fairs, including 14 Hire Our Heroes hiring events serving over 11,000
veterans, seven Heroes2Hire events serving over 2,000 veterans and 19 Yellow
Ribbon events serving over 5,300 returning Arizona National Guard Service
members.
For the past two years in October, DDD with numerous other state agencies and
community stakeholders has participated in the D.R.E.A.M. (Disability and
Rehabilitation Employment Awareness Month) Job Fairs held throughout the
state, providing job and networking opportunities for people with disabilities.
The Department’s DDD is also an active participant in the Arizona Employment
and Disability Partnership, whose mission is to ensure the full inclusion of
individuals with disabilities in the workforce by coordinating and enhancing
networks through systems change and capacity building initiatives.
In addition, DES DDD is a member of Untapped Arizona, a project of the Arizona
Medicaid Infrastructure Grant, created to serve Arizona businesses to meet their
inclusive workforce needs by connecting them directly with qualified job
candidates with disabilities. Untapped Arizona is currently seeking an Executive
Director who will be responsible for developing and managing a nonprofit
organization whose role will include the functions of a “business leadership

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network” to support Arizona businesses in hiring and retaining employees with
disabilities.

Issue 3: Accountability and Transparency
The agency faces a range of challenges as it strives to deliver critical protective and assistance
services to millions of Arizonans and manage multiple priorities, amidst a backdrop of economic
uncertainty and decreases in funding. In addition, being a large human services agency
composed of more than 40 different programs, and with approximately 10,000 employees and
thousands of contractors, the agency recognizes the need to ensure accountability of employees,
contractors and providers; prevent, mitigate, investigate and prosecute fraud, waste and abuse;
and improve its utilization of resources. From an operations perspective, these programs also
translate to numerous interdependent processes that span across program and functional areas,
and to a complex matrix of risks facing the agency.
Given these challenges, the agency established the Office of Accountability in SFY 2012 to
monitor compliance with requirements at all levels of the Department; ensure customers obtain
the benefits, goods and services they are eligible to receive; provide objective, reliable data and
analysis to inform management decisions; and identify opportunities for improvement and
innovation, driving continual improvement of DES programs, functions and processes. The
Office is composed of a number of accountability and enforcement functions, such as audit,
investigation, licensing and regulation, quality monitoring, and appellate services. It has also
recently assumed responsibility for the administrative and analytical support of Human Rights
Committees, a third-party oversight body in charge of reviewing potential human rights
violations for the agency’s developmentally disabled customers.
Under the leadership of the Chief Accountability Officer, the Office has been working
aggressively in reviewing and assessing the efficiency and effectiveness of the agency’s
programs and operations, and in the redesign and improvement of key processes. As an
example, in the past year, the Office initiated a review of, and improvements to, the public
assistance benefit fraud and overpayment welfare prosecution process – which involves six
programmatic and functional areas in the agency – to achieve greater levels of efficiency. The
Office has also enhanced the communication and strengthened partnerships among its audit
function and with the Department’s program areas to improve internal controls, contract
language, triggers for detecting improper payments to contractors, and accountability of
contractors in the delivery of services. In addition, the Office also completed an agency-wide
assessment of, and developed recommendations for the refinement, creation, alignment or
integration of performance management and accountability functions.

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To promote a more coordinated approach and realize meaningful results in its work, the Office
has established and refined partnerships, and engaged multiple entities within and outside the
Department. By involving employees at all levels in the Department, other government agencies
and stakeholder groups, the Office aims to foster shared ownership and promote a culture of
accountability and transparency in the agency’s operations.
The Office is also currently engaged in automating its workflows, data collection, assessment
and reporting to enable it to effectively manage and assess enterprise risks, and report
compliance with internal controls and regulatory requirements. In addition, the Office continues
to strive for excellence in the quality, accuracy and timeliness of its work.

Goal 4: Improve Accountability through Active Performance-Monitoring and
Increased Transparency
The Department is holding itself accountable by examining its processes, exploring ways to
improve, and by sharing information with stakeholders and the public as openly as
possible.

Strategies:
1. Improve documentation of key processes and evaluate the extent to which these
processes meet customer and business requirements, and consistent compliance
with all federal and state regulations and requirements to deliver greater value to
the Department and its stakeholders.
The Office of Accountability has initiated a comprehensive documentation,
review and analysis of key processes to evaluate the extent to which these
processes fulfill objectives; evaluate process capability and capacity; identify gaps
between requirements and process outputs and outcomes; identify enterprise-wide
opportunities for improvement; redesign key processes to meet requirements; and
develop and implement management controls. This review will allow the
Department to understand and meet performance measures from our funding
agencies, improve outcomes and services for consumers, and deliver greater
value.
2. Develop and implement a comprehensive and enterprise-wide approach to fraud
management, prevention, detection, investigation and corrective action.

The Office of Accountability has conducted a comprehensive collection,
documentation and review of existing anti-fraud internal controls; and
identification of gaps, residual risks and weaknesses in internal controls.

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3. Enhance the functionality of program activities through internal review, analysis,
and design changes.
Enhance Adult Protective Services staffing and reduce caseloads to manageable
levels to address the safety of vulnerable adults and to promote self-sufficiency
and independence.
The Department continues to engage in a comprehensive analysis and
modernization of the Adult Protective Services system. This process began by
engaging the agency’s best staff to streamline not only the current process for the
investigation of allegations of adult abuse, neglect and exploitation but also
identifying cost efficiencies. The goal of the new process and efficiencies is to
improve adult safety and well-being by removing redundancies, thereby allowing
investigations to be completed more quickly. Unfortunately, limited staffing and
budget restrictions prevented DES from implementing all of the improvements
identified. A few key initiatives that have been implemented include
consolidation of offices, mobile offices, utilizing AmeriCorps volunteers and
interns, create a working relationship with Area Agencies on Aging to reduce
recidivism, work across district lines (as needed) and provide more training on
investigations and substantiation.
Finally, while the APS modernization project has increased efficiencies in
investigations and cost savings, it cannot fully compensate for the dramatic
growth in workload. For example, at the beginning of state fiscal year 2013, the
statewide average caseload for an Adult Protective Services worker was 67, which
is 49 percent above the Arizona caseload standard. By the end of state fiscal year
2013, the average APS caseload was 105 statewide, as APS had an historic year
receiving more calls (16,635) and investigating more reports (11,161) in one year
than ever before. As a result, for state fiscal year 2015, the Department has
requested an additional 64 APS staff, of which 40 are APS investigators.
4. Enhance child protection staffing and reduce caseloads to manageable levels for
CPS staff to address child safety, and ensure permanency and well-being.
The Division of Children, Youth and Families continues to be engaged in targeted
process improvement work with Division staff to improve the child abuse intake,
and investigation process. The Division is assessing how these processes could be
streamlined in order to accomplish specific performance measures, including
timeliness of completing an investigation or case plan, increased visitation, and
increasing the capacity of the CPS Specialist and Supervisor to ensure that
caseworker time is spent on value-added steps. In addition to the work that the
teams of staff conduct, each team's recommendations are informed by focus
groups with other CPS staff and stakeholders from across the state such as courts,
providers, parents, youth, and citizen groups.

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The Division’s process improvement work has expanded beyond a focus on
investigations to also include process improvement across the child safety,
permanency and well-being spectrum to include: Ongoing Case Management,
Adoptions, the Child Abuse Hotline, Practice Improvement, Protective Services
Review Team, and Policy.
These teams and their ideas are a foundation upon which the Department will
continue to evaluate ways to better address child safety and to communicate these
efforts on an ongoing basis. Similar to any process or practice improvement, close
monitoring is necessary to ensure continuous improvement occurs.
Growing CPS Specialist workload continues to be a challenge. As a result of the
increased number of Child Abuse Hotline reports, in-home services cases, and
children in out-of-home care, caseloads per caseworker far exceed the Division’s
standard.
To address the CPS case workload, a statewide Social Work Assessment Team
(SWAT) was put in place and embedded in each CPS Region to:
o Provide relief for CPS staff by helping to achieve more manageable
caseloads and increase staff's capacity to spend time on value added steps
that ensure child safety and engage families.
o Share trends identified in cases to build the skill level of direct line staff
and supervisors as well as staff development and training needs for the
system to sustain progress.
o Work with Practice Improvement, Policy Specialists and Training staff to
support the field and provide expert assistance for all process
improvement changes.

The Division hired a recruiter and is partnering with Arizona State University on
a comprehensive assessment of recruitment, hiring, onboarding and training with
an action plan to restructure, reformat and incorporate consistent practices and
opportunities for recruitment and continuous learning.
Immediate recruitment and hiring improvements include hiring a recruitment
officer, implementing consistent hiring and retention practices, streamlining the
hiring process, connecting onboarding and training processes, and developing
Virtual Job Tryout.

15

Assessment and improvements to training include a revised model that provides a
more comprehensive hands-on learning experience, coupled with mentors, which
in turn aims to improve retention by providing both new employees and existing
case managers with additional support for professional development and learning.
In addition to the efficiencies discussed above and the staffing request mentioned
earlier in this document, the Department has revised its caseload standards to
more accurately reflect today’s work environment. The Department has developed
a plan to add another 200 caseworkers over the course of fiscal years 2015 and
2016 and has requested $12.1 million in fiscal year 2015 to begin hiring those
staff and return caseloads per caseworker to levels that are more manageable.
The Department is also working with an outside vendor to assess the effectiveness
of its child welfare information system, known as CHILDS, and to determine
possibilities for improvements or full replacement. CHILDS is a legacy system
dating back to the 1990s, and is not compatible with modern mobile computing.
The Department currently projects the total cost at about $70 million.
Finally, the Department is exploring the implementation of a differential response
system to include the creation of pathways to better respond to allegations of child
abuse and neglect. Differential response emphasizes a family focused, strengths
based approach to support child and family well-being and include engagement
with the family to assess the family’s needs and strengths, and improve the
service array to meet the family's needs and support positive parenting.

Issue 4: Transforming from a Program-Centric to Person-Centric Human
Service System
Arizona’s safety net system is challenged by both a fundamental design flaw and an over-arching
operating flaw. These flaws inhibit the ability of the system to promote consumers’ capacity to
achieve better outcomes and reduce their dependency on public assistance.
The design flaw stems from a disconnected, program-centric, often conflicting set of singlepurpose programs, each designed to address a narrow aspect of human well-being. Each program
is structured through its own objectives, rules, funding, and service delivery system that is selfcontained and centered on a specific life-sustaining intervention. Additionally, the rules of one
program may conflict with those of another. As a result, these programs are not designed, nor
are they intended to work in conjunction with each other to achieve the broader objective of
growing the consumer beyond that person’s need for public assistance.

16

The operating flaw stems from a safety net system that places little to no emphasis on helping a
family or individual move beyond the condition or circumstances for which the support was
needed. In many situations, persons present with problems that are inter-related. As each
intervention only focuses on its own narrow area of authority and those areas of authority were
not designed to work with other interventions, there is no overarching perspective of the person,
nor any emphasis on remediating the inter-related problems. Even in socially and economically
fragile situations, this disconnected program-focused system has no intentionality of addressing
the presenting circumstances in order to help the consumer grow beyond their need for the safety
net.

Goal 5: Improve Outcomes for Arizonans by Creating a Person-Centric
Human Services System
The Department of Economic Security (DES), as a principal component of Arizona’s public
safety net system, seeks to create an operating construct that addresses both the design and
operating flaws of the Human Services System through a Demonstration Project that tests,
refines, and expands strategies that improve outcomes for individuals and families served
by the Department. Enhancing the capacity of safety net consumers to be their highest
functioning selves outside of the safety net is an important part of strengthening Arizona
and enhancing its future ability to compete economically.

Strategies:
1. Engage critical partners including consumers, staff, academicians, and state and federal
partners to inform and enhance the achievement of the Demonstration Project.
The Department has established several critical partnerships to provide meaningful
stakeholder engagement in the design, operation and evaluation of the Demonstration
Project. These partnerships include an Academic Advisory Board, Federal Policy Team,
and National Stakeholders Group.
2. Implement a demonstration project to test, refine and expand strategies that improve
outcomes for individuals and families served by the Department.
The Department is currently in the process of designing a Demonstration Project to test
and refine an outcome-based, person-centric approach to supporting individuals in need
of safety net supports. The Demonstration Project operating model includes three primary
components: case coordination, comprehensive assessment and the individualized
development plan. Case coordinators are dedicated to supporting the individual and
his/her family holistically. Case coordinators conduct a comprehensive assessment with
the individual to gain a broad understanding of the individual’s priorities, aspirations,
resources and needs in order to develop a plan that delineates the steps needed to
accomplish the individual’s goals, identify his/her existing and potential informal
supports and other public resources, when needed.

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RESOURCE ASSUMPTIONS SUMMARIES
Agency Funding Total for All Funds

FY 2014

FY 2015

FY 2016

FY 2017

FY 2018

FY 2019

9,451.5

9,999.6

10,050.0

10,100.0

10,151.0

10,202.0

690,112.9

901,882.5

919,900.0

938,300.0

957,100.0

976,200.0

Other
Appropriated
Funds

521,555.2

462,859.3

476,700.0

491,000.0

505,700.0

520,900.0

Other Non‐
Appropriated
Funds

728,997.5

774,084.1

797,300.0

821,200.0

845,800.0

871,200.0

Federal Non‐
Appropriated
Funds

3,212,603.1

2,891,671.8

2,964,000.0

3,038,100.0

3,114,100.0

3,192,000.0

Aggregate
Agency Level
Total

5,153,268.7

5,030,497.7

5,157,900.0

5,288,600.0

5,422,700.0

5,560,300.0

FTE

General Fund

Funding Amounts in Thousands

18

Equal Opportunity Employer/Program • Under Titles VI and VII of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI & VII), and the Americans with
Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act
of 1973, the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, and Title II of the Genetic
Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) of 2008; the Department
prohibits discrimination in admissions, programs, services, activities,
or employment based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin,
age, disability, genetics and retaliation. The Department must make
a reasonable accommodation to allow a person with a disability to
take part in a program, service or activity. For example, this means
if necessary, the Department must provide sign language interpreters
for people who are deaf, a wheelchair accessible location, or enlarged
print materials. It also means that the Department will take any other
reasonable action that allows you to take part in and understand a
program or activity, including making reasonable changes to an activity.
If you believe that you will not be able to understand or take part in
a program or activity because of your disability, please let us know
of your disability needs in advance if at all possible. To request this
document in alternative format or for further information about
this policy, contact 602-542-3882; TTY/TDD Services: 7-1-1. • Free
language assistance for DES services is available upon request.

PPP-1072ASRLPD (12-13)