State Representatives Jason Woolford (R-Howell) and Luke Meerman (R-Coopersville) expressed their indignation on Thursday over a new audit report that found that a state agency failed to investigate 150 children’s deaths. The Office of Auditor General issued a report on Thursday documenting severe failures by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services’ (MDHHS) Office of Family Advocate, finding that they neglected to check 150 child deaths to see if they merited further review. The report also found that among 143 reported child deaths that met the criteria for further review, the Office of Family Advocate only investigated 35 cases.

“We have a government trying to limit our citizen’s freedoms and impose strict child-registration requirements on families, all while not doing their job to actually ensure children are being protected,” Woolford said. “While the state continues to overreach into the lives of people who adhere to the rule of law, they fail time after time to help the kids who have been entrusted to their protection. For them to think that they could hide this abdication of duty from the public is egregious and demands a legislative response.”

Both Woolford and Meerman are members of the House Oversight Committee, which was granted full subpoena power at the beginning of the term and will continue to be a vital part of House leadership’s goal to make government more transparent and accountable. Additionally, Woolford chairs the House Oversight Subcommittee on State and Local Public Assistance Programs, and Meerman chairs the House Oversight Subcommittee on Child Welfare System, both committees that oversee government programs like the Office of Family Advocate.

“We formed a whole committee devoted to fixing our state government’s highly defective safety net for children, and the audit report issued today shows exactly why that was necessary,” Meerman said. “As chair of this committee, I believe we have a responsibility to investigate severe failures like the ones committed by the Family Advocate Office and then use our insight to offer real solutions. Children, our society’s most vulnerable and innocent members, need the law’s protections more than anyone. There are few, if any, responsibilities that government has that are more important than this. As long as issues with our child welfare system persist, we will be working tirelessly to fix them.”