NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A Tennessee Comptroller performance audit found the Department of Children’s Services has not been fully reporting — and in some cases still had not reported — required public information on deaths and near deaths of children involved with the agency.
Auditors said delayed reporting reduced transparency and accountability. The public may lack critical information needed to evaluate the child protection system in a timely manner, the audit said.
DCS must publicly report when children die in custody or suffer a near fatality, and for children under investigation or investigated within 45 days of a death or near fatality. The audit found the department did not disclose any of the near fatalities it investigated since October 2023, largely because it lacked a physician reviewer for almost 20 months.
In 2023 there were 192 child fatality cases and in 2024 there were 168 fatality cases, according to the audit. Reviewers sampled 70 pending death cases from those years and found delays from unfinished investigator summaries, delayed supervisory reviews and autopsy backlogs, especially in West Tennessee.
One of eight major findings cited prolonged investigative tasks, delayed supervisory reviews and the missing physician reviewer as reasons the department could not update its website on fatalities and near fatalities on time. DCS said it later filled the physician reviewer post and was creating a Child Death team to streamline those cases.
Commissioner Margie Quin has said the agency is making multi-year fixes after the 2022 audit. The latest review found five have been resolved, four have been partially resolved and four have been repeated from earlier findings.
