The following statement can be attributed to Jeff Sheridan, Governor Wolf's Press Secretary:
When Governor Wolf took office, his administration inherited a ChildLine program that was not being implemented properly, and was an absolute mess.
Despite the law mandating that calls be responded to in 14 days, due to the high volume of calls, the total number of days reached as high as 26 days. The governor and Human Services Secretary Ted Dallas immediately went to work to fix the problem, and as a result of changes made, including new leadership to oversee the program and additional staffing and resources provided, the Wolf Administration:
Reduced the number of response days from 26 to 2.
Increased the number of calls responded to in a timely manner from 47 percent to 100 percent.
Reduced the number of abandoned calls from 43 percent to 12 percent.
The Administration is currently working to reduce this percentage to 4 percent, but additional funding is necessary.
The Wolf Administration began fixing the implementation of the program more than a year before the Auditor General began his audit, and while many strides have been made, there is more work to do.
We are committed to continuing our work with the legislature to implement the law and to finding ways to direct additional resources to ChildLine, and we are pleased the Auditor General is now involved in the process and has highlighted the need for more funding and additional staffing.