Stress is taking a toll on Maryland's social workers and their clients as they ponder further budget cuts after a 13- month hiring freeze and watch caseloads climb again in some Baltimore suburbs.

Some advocates fear the cuts could stop or reverse progress made since salary and staffing increases for child welfare workers began in 1998, after the highly publicized starvation and abuse case of 9-year-old Rita Fisher in Baltimore County.

Running at a deficit even before the latest cuts, the state Department of Human Resources hasn't been able to hire all the new child welfare workers authorized or fill vacancies in existing positions.

"It could mean kids get abused or neglected. It could mean kids get separated from their parents when they shouldn't be. Some of these things cost us big time," said Charlie Cooper, administrator of the Maryland Citizens' Review Board for Children, an independent, state-appointed group.

Statewide, 653 vacant positions have been eliminated, and 300 other vacancies remain unfilled in the 7,714-person work force, said Lois Whitaker, deputy secretary of operations for the Department of Human Resources.

In addition, the state hired social workers to fill only 50 of 109 new child welfare positions in the fiscal 2002 budget, and 40 of the 108 approved in the current fiscal year, said Craig Adams, director of DHR's office of management services. DHR was recently given permission - but not money - to hire 50 more child welfare workers, Adams said.

"Filling child welfare positions is crucial. It's a promise that must be kept," said Sharon Rubenstein of Advocates for Children and Youth, a private non-profit group.

DHR Secretary Emelda P. Johnson knows her workers don't have the highest morale right now, but, she said, "we've made some progress" over the past few years. "I don't think it is going to go back to where it was before."

The state's most vulnerable people "depend heavily on case workers and social workers - you are the important ones," she said.

But Cooper said repeated requests to Gov. Parris N. Glendening to treat child welfare services as a public safety issue have failed, leaving needy children vulnerable to the state's budget woes. "If a child is possibly going to be abused or neglected, why isn't that public safety?" he said.

A legislative performance audit completed in May found that no criminal background checks had been documented in 46 percent of the 163 foster care placements checked.

Maryland has 11,000 children placed outside of their homes. In one case, the auditors found a child in a foster home where a family member had been convicted for a sexual assault - something unknown to the placement agency, the report said. Records were lacking for medical care and school attendance for about a third of the children.

Johnson said those errors have been corrected, but she added that her workers are "overwhelmed with paperwork," making requests for new computers and faster software vital to the main job of protecting poor people.

Camille Wheeler, Baltimore County's social services director for 19 years, said the late 1990s boom was good for social work, as it was for school construction and other government programs. But now, "we're going through another constriction. The job freeze is perhaps one of the worst ways to do that because it's indiscriminate in how it affects service."

Also, the extra paperwork takes a toll, Wheeler said. "The thing that goes is the time with clients."

Rising requests

Meanwhile, requests are increasing for food stamps and other support services for people recently returned to the work force, several officials said.

Emergency cash for people facing eviction, which once covered a full month's rent or security deposit, is now limited to $300 or $500 in Baltimore County, social services spokeswoman Maureen Robinson said.

In Howard County, social services director Sam Marshall has shifted a second security guard from the employee entrance to the office's main lobby because of increased tension from longer waits.

"You can't tell folks who are hungry or upset they have to wait," Marshall said. When things get too backed up, an "amber alert" is called - employees stop work elsewhere and go into the lobby to help reduce the waiting time.

"The stress is here," Marshall told his volunteer advisory board at a recent meeting, noting that a worker was hospitalized with high blood pressure.

Child support has a current vacancy rate of 27 percent, and each worker supervises more than 1,000 cases, Marshall said. Overall, Howard County has a 16.5 percent vacancy rate.

The human element

Baltimore's social services staff has 325 vacancies - about 11 percent of the total 2,925 positions.

"It's worst not knowing what's going to happen on a personal level. I think that's most stressful," spokeswoman Sue Fitzsimmons said. "Morale is what you expect it to be. It's been difficult."

Also potentially on the chopping block is money for office cleaning, supplies and security, Fitzsimmons said.

Marshall said 75 percent of the Howard County office's budget for overtime, travel and supplies has been slashed.

"When you cut any deeper, you get into human capital. There's nowhere else to cut," he said.

Baltimore County has 61 vacancies, or about 11 percent of the staff. "I'm not sure we can endure much from people who leave or retire," Robinson said.

Jerome M. Reyerson, Harford County's social services director, said he has an 11.5 percent vacancy rate.

It "looks kind of bleak at this point," he said.

Others are less affected.

"We're very lucky," said Sam Andalora, assistant director of social services in Carroll County. Of his office's 121 total jobs, two vacant jobs have been eliminated, leaving one opening. Carroll lost one social worker, a parent aide and a clerical job. "Our morale here is good. People are not leaving," he said.

With a new governor about to take office and facing a much larger projected revenue shortfall that Glendening's $7.8 million cut would address, the future is unclear, DHR Secretary Johnson said.

Some caseloads up

But while staffs are frozen, state DHR charts show welfare caseloads are rising in Anne Arundel, Cecil, Harford, Howard and Frederick counties, and in some places on the Eastern Shore.

Rich Larson, policy and research director for the state, said the overall direction is still down statewide. The increases seen in some counties are likely because of seasonal layoffs.

"Essentially it's flat," Larson said about the forecast for caseload trends the next few years. "There's no real pattern going on.

Kathi Heslin, Howard's assistant director for family investment, said she's sifting through the past two months of welfare applications to see why the numbers of cases are rising there after seven years of sharp declines.

Howard's welfare cases rose 54 percent from January 2000 to October this year, and Harford's is up 69 percent during that period. But both are less than half their 1995 totals.

"We're still putting a lot of people into jobs," Heslin said.

Statewide, welfare roles have dropped 68 percent - and wealthy Howard County's dropped 79 percent - since 1995, when the federal welfare reform law took effect.

None of that long-term decline is helping much right now, though.

"What we're hearing is that the stress and tension is mostly on the child welfare side," said David McNear, a budget advocate for the Advocates for Children and Youth.

"We worked really hard on getting a bill through [the General Assembly] for adequate caseloads," he said, bemoaning the state's failure to fulfill goals set in 1998.

On the emotional frontlines, even supervisors are feeling the pressure.

"I am really in overload, stretched in different directions," Anne Wright, Howard's child support supervisor, told the county board.

Sun staff writer Greg Garland contributed to this article.