Surge in Caseload Has Put Agency in 'Crisis,' Court Told

Tragedies such as the Jacks case "have the potential to knock any system off balance and particularly a system still engaged in a rigorous change process," Meltzer wrote.

The court hearing yesterday took a dramatic turn from the original plan. Meltzer intended to outline a plan for more improvements in 2008, according to her report. Instead, she worked with the agency to draw up a six-month "stabilization plan."

As of March 14, there were 1,602 open investigations in addition to a backlog of 1,107 investigations that had been open for more than 30 days. It was a marked increase from the last time Meltzer sounded an alarm that the backlog was too high: In July 2004, she was worried about 685 backlogged cases, she said.

Hogan said yesterday he was "somewhat surprised about how fragile the agency seems after all the work in the past."

Bobo said giant strides have been made in the past few years. "We are simply not the agency we were," she said. Last year, the backlog of cases was 50, she said.

And she said the unnatural influx of calls is waning, signaling some relief. "It may have peaked in February" and dropped significantly last month, Bobo said.

She also hopes to hire social workers to help close the gap. That task was made more difficult when Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) fired six child welfare workers involved in the Jacks case, sending a chill through social workers across the region.

"Initially, that was the case," she said. But she said that the fear has lessened and that the agency has recently managed to woo two social workers from a neighboring suburban agency.