Mississippi seeks end to federal oversight of its child welfare system

• “Time and resources that would be better spent on developing and sustaining a competently administered system focused on the best interests of the children is expended on data collection and legal bills that sustain the institutional reform litigation cottage industry,” the Attorney General contends.

Mississippi has filed motions in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi to end federal court oversight of the State’s child welfare system that resulted from the 2004 Olivia Y. lawsuit. 

According to Attorney General Lynn Fitch, Mississippi was sued in 2004, the parties settled in 2007, and a settlement agreement and reform plan has been in place since 2008. The State has spent more than $25 million in legal fees for this case, including more than $8 million to the plaintiffs’ attorneys and the court-appointed monitor.

“For decades, institutional reform litigation has purportedly sought to effect systemic improvements in child welfare agencies across the country. Over time, though, the focus of institutional reform cases—like this action—has improperly evolved,” the Attorney General argues in one filing. “Time and resources that would be better spent on developing and sustaining a competently administered system focused on the best interests of the children is expended on data collection and legal bills that sustain the institutional reform litigation cottage industry.”

Since 2021, the 2nd Modified Settlement Agreement has been suspended, allowing Mississippi to pursue reforms “rather than meet burdensome administrative requirements of the court-appointed monitor,” the State contends.

The Attorney General said recent history shows the greatest strides in institutional reform in the 22 years since this case was filed have been accomplished when the settlement agreement and reform plan have been suspended and Defendants could turn their attention to the system’s true purpose—meeting the needs of Mississippi children, not those of self-interested professional plaintiffs.

Some of those reforms include reductions in the average caseloads and case-carrying turnover for caseworkers, a net gain of 136 licensed non-relative foster homes between July 2024 and February 2026, an increase in adoption subsidies to 75% of the corresponding foster care board rate, and year-over-year increases in state general fund appropriations to CPS from $111,828,255 in FY 2022 to $140,814,395 in FY 2027, to name a few.

You can read the full filing from the State below.