Utah News Dispatch
Audit: Poor DCFS casework kept Utah kids in harm’s way
People arrive to work at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on the first day of the legislative session, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
A new legislative audit faults Utah’s child welfare agency for “concerning patterns in a significant number of cases” that left children less safe, instead of better off.
The review released Friday condemns “weak oversight” by the Utah Division of Child and Family Services. Auditors found some recent investigations by its employees were so slow and flawed that they subjected children to further injury and abuse, but supervisors didn’t step in to spot and correct the problems.
They noted the agency’s failures to meet its own standards for investigations “pose an unacceptably high risk to the children the division is meant to protect.”
In one case, a child remained with a caregiver for weeks despite a dire warning from a medical professional who found the child at high risk of further injury or death. It bears a resemblance to a case from 2017 that ended in greater tragedy when the child died, the auditors wrote.
“It is highly concerning that similar, inexcusably bad situations are still occurring eight years later,” the report states. It went on to recommend that senior managers fix “what amounts to a deep cultural problem in DCFS.”
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The auditors presented their findings to a panel of top state lawmakers at the Capitol Friday. After hearing the presentation, House Minority Leader Angela Romero wanted answers on how the division will deal with supervisors who don’t hold employees accountable.
“I’d love to know what you’re going to do about that, because these are our most vulnerable of the vulnerable,” said Romero, D-Salt Lake City. These are children, and it’s up to us as a state to make sure we’re protecting them.”
Tonya Myrup, the division’s director, said it’s moving to a new data system providing real-time numbers that show how employees are performing and which cases need attention.
“We will be rolling out expectations about how frequently those reports are reviewed, how that information is leveraged, how to have the conversations with the supervisors — ensuring that accountability, oversight and monitoring is happening all the way from the front line through the top of the system,” Myrup said.
Tracy Gruber, executive director of the Utah Department of Health and Human Services, said she’s taking responsibility to improve oversight and accountability but “this isn’t a failed system or a system that needs significant overhaul.”
Gruber called the audit “sobering.”
“When we fail, we lose trust, but more importantly, harm is done to kids,” she said. “Our department should never be a contributing factor in increasing risk of harm to children across the state.”
Auditors found further problems when they scrutinized the department’s fatality reviews compiled when a child dies. The reviews aren’t public, but are sent to lawmakers on a child welfare panel who scrutinize them in closed meetings.
The audit said fatality reviews from 2023-2025 made no mention of policy violations even though they occurred, and the reviews were more heavily redacted than necessary.
Sen. Luz Escamilla, who is also a member of the Child Welfare Legislative Oversight Panel that looks into the deaths, expressed concern about the omitted information.
“That needs to be fixed,” said Escamilla, D-Salt Lake City.
The audit described a case that was troubling, though not because of inaction by employees. Auditors said a caseworker went to a hospital to secretly observe a family and “unfairly accused them of neglecting their child.” The case landed in court and a judge dismissed it.
House Speaker Mike Schultz said the family ended up paying $80,000 to fight the allegations. He predicted it will be difficult for an agency as large as the Division of Child and Family Services to change its culture as it tries to improve.
“Moving forward, there will be a follow-up on this audit,” said Schultz, R-Hooper. “And we would like to see significant improvements to the department.”
