Jess Bax, acting director of the Department of Social Services, sitting before the Senate committee on gubernatorial appointments Feb. 26. 2025 (Clara Bates/Missouri Independent).
A Republican lawmaker is holding up confirmation of Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe’s pick to lead the social services department until she gets answers from the agency about chronic problems that have plagued the foster care system for years and what she says has been the agency’s failure to implement laws designed to help.
State Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, a Republican from Arnold, asked Senate leadership to hold off on a confirmation vote for Jessica Bax’s appointment as director of the Missouri Department of Social Services.
Bax’s appointment was briefly discussed by the Senate’s gubernatorial appointments committee on Wednesday, but her name was left off the slate of candidates that was forwarded to the full Senate for a vote on Thursday.
The delay came at Coleman’s request, she said in an interview with The Independent. She has no intention of blocking Bax’s confirmation, but she’s still waiting on the department to provide her with information about policy changes passed by the legislature to improve the child welfare system that the agency appears to have ignored while it continues to struggle to live up to its mission, she said.
Mike Kehoe appoints new leader for Missouri social services agency
“I have real, deep concerns about the functionality of the department,” Coleman said. “I am really hopeful that Jess is going to be successful in that role. I’m really pleased in the new administration’s willingness to work with me. But this is about trying to get to the heart of what has been the problem, which I think has been a leadership failure.”
Lawmakers have passed several new laws and increased the department’s budget without seeing results, Coleman said.
“When I’m at a point where I think our policy as outlined in our statutes is in really good shape,” she said, “and our funding levels are matching what the needs should be for the division, and we’re still not seeing good results, then we need to be looking more closely at leadership.”
Coleman expects Bax to be confirmed soon and emphasized she doesn’t “have an axe to grind.”
“It’s just, I care deeply about making sure that our foster care kids get what they need, and this is an opportunity to do that,” she said.
The Department of Social Services declined to comment.
Gabby Picard, spokeswoman for the governor’s office, said it’s “not uncommon” for a senator to request additional information before a director’s confirmation.
“Gov. Kehoe and Sen. Coleman share the same goals of better serving Missouri families and children, and that’s why he appointed Jess Bax to lead the department,” Picard said.
‘Keeping families safely together when we can’
Coleman said despite legislative action over the last few years, the department is still doing a “very poor job” of getting kids into what’s called kinship care — foster care placements with their relatives, which are supposed to be prioritized under law.
She also pointed to persistently low reunification rates, which refers to the rate of kids returning home from foster care.
Bax has been acting director of the Department of Social Services since last month, and has until the end of session, May 16, to be confirmed as the director. Previously, she was the director of the Division of Developmental Disabilities for the Department of Mental Health.
Bax received only a few questions during the Senate’s committee on gubernatorial appointments hearing on Wednesday — the precursor to being confirmed by the Senate. Three other nominees who received a hearing Wednesday were confirmed by the Senate on Thursday.
About her plans for the agency, Bax said one thing she “knew going in was that this is not an easy position.”
“And when you have looked at the history of social services, we have kind of an instability in leadership, and that really has led us to arrive today,” she said. “We’ve inherited a lot of issues at that department that need to be resolved.”
Mary Chant, CEO of the nonprofit Missouri Coalition for Children, emphasized the need for “stability in leadership” at the department earlier this week during a House Budget Committee hearing. She also raised concerns about the agency failing to use appropriated funding designed to help keep children safely in their homes, and prevent children from needing to enter foster care in the first place.
“I want to take this opportunity to talk about our excitement in working with new leadership, both with the Department of Social Services and when there is a decision made on the Children’s Division director. This transition, I think, has been difficult with the absence of leadership,” Chant said, “and has resulted in some challenges as we’re trying to really continue the momentum of keeping children and families safely together wherever we can.”
The former director of the department, Robert Knodell, stepped away last month as the new governor was taking over. And the agency has been without a permanent Children’s Division director since Darrell Missey stepped down Nov. 1 after three years. Children’s Division runs the state’s child welfare system.
Missey’s tenure was the longest of the six directors the division saw during former Gov. Mike Parson’s six years in office.
The number of foster children in Missouri has been declining but still far outpaces the national average. There are 11,070 kids in foster care as of last month, down from a peak at 14,265 kids in 2021.
And once in foster care, they linger: only 44% of Missouri foster children reunified with their families within a year of entering state care, according to the most recent data in the agency’s budget, covering fiscal year 2024.
The federal benchmark is 75%.
Those children are also moved around between placements more, on average, than the federal benchmark.
Placement issues
Another issue that has come up this week is a lack of placement options for the children brought into care.
Senate President Pro Tem Cindy O’Laughlin, a Republican from Shelbina who called Children’s Division a “failing system” last month, mentioned concern with foster kids’ placement during Wednesday’s confirmation hearing.
“We have a lot of children that are in very unstable situations,” O’Laughlin said. “I know that we’ll all be looking forward to seeing what your plans are and helping you where we can.”
Foster children have been housed in hospitals and mental health facilities with no other place to go. A 2023 report commissioned by the legislature found that foster kids forced to board in hospitals are often there “not for reasons of abuse and neglect, but due to families lacking meaningful access to resources necessary to support their behavioral health needs.”
In 2024, Children’s Division spent $15 million for 314 children to reside in hospitals, for an average of 22 days per child, according to a fiscal note.
There are 85 foster children currently housed out of state because of a lack of placement options within Missouri, said Pat Luebbering, the social services department’s chief financial officer, during a Senate appropriations hearing on Tuesday.
“I can’t even begin to fathom how difficult that has to be for those kids,” said state Sen. Maggie Nurrenbern, a Kansas City Democrat.
Last year, Children’s Division spent over $13.6 million for 70 kids in out-of-state placements. They spent an average of 60 days in those placements.
The most recent monthly data published by Children’s Division, from December shows:
- 77 foster children marked as “runaways”
- 49 in medical facilities
- 194 in mental health facilities
- 349 in mental health homes
- 67 in “non-licensed/court-ordered placement”
- And 51 housed in detention facilities.
Coleman said the legislature has done an overhaul of laws around child welfare over the last few years and seen “failure to implement” by the department.
She has been “really pleased” that the Kehoe administration has been willing to work with her to get answers.
“But this is about trying to get to the heart of what has been the problem,” she said, “which I think has been a leadership failure.”
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