BATON ROUGE — A new audit released Monday morning revealed the Department of Children and Family Services is still struggling.

The Louisiana Legislative audit found 129 vacant child welfare positions statewide – with 16 openings in the Baton Rouge area. The audit showed that in one year, workers' caseloads jumped from 9 to almost 16 cases a month.

Senator Regina Barrow said the audit shows that not only is the department understaffed, but they're also overworked.

"Oftentimes they are on call, and whenever they get a call, they have to respond. And so it's hard to maintain those individuals because they don't make a lot of money," Barrow said.

The agency spent nearly $150 million on staffing in 2024, just that's about $6 million more than the year before. This includes salaries, related benefits such as retirement and insurance, and other forms of compensation.

The audit also shows DCFS hiring contract workers in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, who handled a total of over 3,000  cases — earning up to $138,000 a year, doubling what full-time staff makes.

"We pay individuals who are working now more so that we can get more people, and the people that we have will stay," Barrow said.

Barrow said there are issues with both paying workers and keeping them, and lawmakers are taking steps to address that problem.

"With the legislation that just passed on the Senate floor where the department is not going to be having all these different other services they'll have to provide," Barrow said. "So, SNAP is going to be in another division, workforce is going to be in another division, so all that they will be tasked doing is child welfare."

The audit comes after a series of reports from the WBRZ Investigative Unit uncovered failures inside the agency, from missed warning signs to tragic child deaths. One of those children, Mitchell Robinson III was killed in 2022. His was mother convicted of his fentanyl overdose death.

Barrow said his death serves as a reminder of her duty to make sure all children in the state are never neglected.

"No other baby, no other child is subjected to that, goes through that, and we don't lose another baby as best we can," she said.

You can read the full audit report here.