DENVER -- The Denver Department of Human Services failed to hire 40 additional employees to handle child-protection cases despite promising the new workers after the deaths of four children, a CALL7 investigation found.

"We have requested an additional investment of 40 additional FTEs (Full-Time Equivalent employees) to handle the increase in work load that is happening right now," former DDHS director Roxane White told a Denver City Council committee about a year ago. "We are dying here. We got to get these workers through training because kids' lives are at stake."

Soon after the Feb. 26, 2008, committee meeting, the full City Council authorized DDHS to spend nearly $2 million to hire the additional workers. But a year after the money was authorized, DDHS hasn't hired the additional 40 child protection employees, a CALL7 computer analysis of city hiring and termination records shows.

"I think we ended up with a plus two or plus three," Pat Wilson-Pheanious, the current DDHS director conceded.

At first Wilson-Pheanious was told by her staff that DDHS had hired those 40 additional employees. But after CALL7 investigators sat down with her top staff to discuss the 7News computer analysis, DDHS staff conceded that the agency just filled position of people who left and DDHS had not hired the additional 40 workers to protect children.

An external review said heavy caseloads for DDHS workers helped contribute to mistakes that led to the deaths of four children in 2007 and 2008 that had been under department supervision. The review also noted that a major factor of the department's high turnover rate, which continues to this day, is that employees have large case loads.

But Wilson-Pheanious said DDHS has changed its procedures so the department did not need the additional hires.

"What we have focused on are changes in practice, changes in supervision, changes in what we do when we intervene in a case ... and how we make referrals to appropriate services," she said. "Those are the things that keep children safe."

The department maintains that caseloads for the existing social workers are within the national standard, but when asked for the figures, DDHS staff provided three different average caseloads over several weeks.

The department at first said child protection caseworkers averaged 18.7 cases per employee in December 2008 -- above the 15-17 case national standard. But department officials later revised that down to an average of about 14 cases per worker, which is below the national standard.

"As you can see, data is not our forte," wrote DDHS spokeswoman Benilda Samuels in an e-mail to 7News trying to explain the reason the numbers changed.

DDHS also said that caseloads in March of 2008 averaged 17.9 per case worker, but later said they could not confirm the accuracy of caseloads a year ago.

Child protection cases are sealed by privacy laws so it is impossible to verify what caseloads Denver social workers actually carry.

But state figures show that between March 2008 and December 2008, the department had nearly 300 additional cases in child protection with no additional case workers. And the department is designating fewer cases as voluntary so there is more work for each employee on many cases.

DDHS sent a memo to council members saying they did a "detailed" analysis and do not need the additional hires because their caseloads are within the national standards. But our investigation found that the department could not even provide accurate caseloads and the department's director did not know her agency had not hired the 40 additional staff until we brought it to her attention in December.

Shari Shink, founder and executive director of the Rocky Mountain Children's Law Center, said the 40 additional hires were a key aspect of last year’s external review of DDHS and the hires were import to keep caseloads low.

"Caseloads are the heart and soul of the work being done in the department of social services," Shink said. “Caseworkers are the people who are going out to the families. If you have a large caseload, you can’t manage it. You can’t see your clients, you can’t be informed, you can’t show up to court with knowledge and information about a family so you even know what to ask for.”

“You can’t do your job?” CALL7 investigator John Ferrugia asked.

“You can’t do your job,” Shink said.

While some DDHS managers apparently knew that no additional workers had been hired, the department’s Web site said the agency had made the hires.

"The department has hired 36 case-carrying staff and supervisors, 2 child welfare legal staff, and 2 family crisis center staff," the department’s Web site said.

And Councilman Doug Linkhart, who is on the council committee that heard the request for new workers, did not know – until 7News informed him -- that the 40 additional employees were not hired. Linkhart said the agency's statements are misleading.

"I had heard that they were in the process of hiring the people," he said. "I had asked about it this summer and they said yes we are hiring those individuals so yeah I assumed they were at work."

Ferrugia questioned Wilson-Pheanious about the assertions that the department made the hires it promised to make.

“Was that honest?” Ferrugia asked Wilson-Pheanious.

“Absolutely, it was,” she answered. “There was certainly no intent to mislead anyone.”

The money, which came out of the DDHS budget but was authorized by the city council for the new hires, was apparently spent for regular department needs and not additional case workers.

“What happened to that money?” Ferrugia asked.

Wilson-Pheanious sputtered, asking “you mean what happened to it? It was money we already had.”

“Did you spend it for the 40 new people?” Ferrugia asked.

“We spent it for the people, and we spent it on other things that come through our budget,” Wilson-Pheanious said.