BATON ROUGE -- At the state capitol on Wednesday, a state senator proposed legislation that could bring a massive overhaul to the state's child welfare system and possibly decide the fate of the Department of Children & Family Services.

Senator Patrick McMath (R-Mandeville) proposed an amended version of Senate Bill 462 to the Senate Health and Welfare Committee. The bill started as a short bill he filed to change mandatory reporting rules.

However, the amended version is over 100 pages long and would divert DCFS responsibilities to the Louisiana Department of Health, the Attorney General's Office, and the Louisiana State Police.

"State police would take the role of first initial contact when it came to child endangerment. LDH would roll in and absorb all the other child welfare services, of which there are many, like foster care. The Attorney General's office would handle prosecutorial measures when it came to child support and perhaps pursue prosecution when it came to child endangerment charges that were to come up from child neglect," McMath told WBRZ.

Lawmakers described the measure as a response to concerns about child welfare outcomes in Louisiana, including child deaths.

"We pulled some data, the top 10 states per 100,000 child homicide rates. The District of Columbia was the only one that exceeded us at 17.9. Louisiana was at the top of the list at 11.5," McMath told the committee.

McMath says he has been working closely with Sen. Regina Barrow (D-Baton Rouge) on which agencies would best be suited to take over the functions of DCFS.

"I'm committed to ensuring that we are saving kids. I want to make sure that we are saving children and we are having families. That's my commitment. It doesn't matter who gets the credit as long as we get the job done," Barrow told WBRZ.

McMath was asked how confident he is that the three agencies could take on the responsibilities if they were assigned to them.

"I can certainly tell you that state police is willing to do anything and everything that they're asked to do by the legislature and, really more so by the Governor's office, and the faith that I have in Attorney General Liz Murrill is the same," McMath said.

Barrow had previously pushed for legislation that would have abolished DCFS.

"What I have seen lately is more young kids dying. That is so unacceptable. I've seen the delay in terms of when calls come in. How are those calls actually going out as it relates to who's responsible? When does it get to the case worker? How the supervisor may be managing it? There are so many different levels and issues that have occurred that I'm familiar with," Barrow said. "When they receive calls about warnings, issues, or concerns of abuse, what happens next? Very simple to me. Should be able to get a simple answer. We were not able to get that information. When we look at their phone logs from EBR parish, where we had over 800 calls, less than 10% of them had a case number."

I asked McMath if the bill were to pass, if DCFS would be abolished.

"Too early to tell you that," McMath said.

Later on Wednesday, the Advocate reported that Governor Jeff Landry was frustrated with McMath, telling reporters that the senator proposed the bill without consulting him.

"I do want to emphasize, that since the bill was heard in committee and the amendments were adopted, myself and President (Cameron) Henry have had very productive conversations with Governor Landry and his staff as well as Secretary (Rebecca) Harris with DCFS and there is clearly a will to make changes to what is a broken welfare system," McMath told WBRZ.

The committee said it will take up the bill again next week, with it being voluntarily deferred by McMath.