Tennessee Department of Children's Services (DCS) offices in Greeneville and Elizabethton could close later this year due to state budget cuts.

If that takes place, DCS staffers assigned to Greeneville and Elizabethton would be absorbed into the DCS office in Johnson City, according to Rob Johnson, a Nashville-based DCS spokesman.

DCS is the state agency responsible for investigating child abuse and neglect.

"As Tennessee's public child welfare agency, the Department of Children's Services is responsible for helping some of our state's most vulnerable citizens," the agency's Web site says.

"Our case managers have the responsibility investigating cases of child abuse and neglect. Our resource parent specialists work to find good foster homes and adoptive families. Our juvenile justice program treats the youthful offenders who are sent to us by the courts.

"Today we have approximately 8,000 in state custody. It is our job to find these children the permanency they need to grow into healthy, happy and productive adults."

Johnson noted that 27 DCS employees are currently assigned to the agency's Greeneville office.

Most of those employees, he said, are out in the community on a daily basis working with families and children.

"It's something they don't want to do," Johnson said. "But it's a really tough budget year."

He explained that the office closings were proposed by Northeast Region DCS leaders as a way of meeting a mandate to reduce the region's 2009-10 budget by $160,000.

But Johnson stressed that a final decision won't be made until after the state legislature passes a 2009-10 state budget.

"This a possibilty that the department has proposed as a way to make ends meet," Johnson said. "But it's subject to legislative approval."

He noted that the primary criteria used in deciding which Northeast Tennessee DCS offices to close were "drive times" and "which offices could absorb employees."

The Johnson City DCS office, he said, had enough space available to absorb the staffs of the Greeneville and Elizabethton offices.

Asked about proposed closing of the Greeneville DCS office, Greene County General Sessions and Juvenile Judge Kenneth Bailey, Jr., said he objects to it and has so informed the members of Greene County's legislative delegation.

"We're the 19th largest county in the state in terms of population," the judge said. "I think this is just crazy."

Specifically, the judge said he believes that relocating local DCS personnel to Johnson City will lead to longer response times in emergency situations.

The judge also thinks the proposed move would mean longer travel time for both families who will have to travel to Johnson City for meetings with DCS case workers and for DCS employees who will be traveling to Greene County.

Judge Bailey also questioned how much savings would result if the relocated DCS workers have to be paid mileage for driving from Johnson City to Greene County on a daily basis.

"I think that it would work a great hardship [on those] who are working to get their children back from foster care and a disservice to the children who are actually in foster care," Judge Bailey said. "The DCS workers will spend more time on the road than they will assisting children and families in Greene County."

The judge also pointed out that past experience has convinced him that trying to serve Greene County from a remote location will be difficult.

"About four years ago while they were building the new DCS building here, they stationed some of their employees in Rogersville and tried to serve Greene County from there," the judge said. "It was a disaster."

Mary Sue Brakebill, retired area manager for the Department of Human Services office here, said she was "saddened" by news that the local DCS office had been chosen for closure.

The Department of Human Services is a sister agency of DHS and the two agencies were combined before 1996, according to Brakebill.

She noted that she began her career working with children and then went into administration.

"Greene County is the second largest county in terms of land area in the state," she said. "That tells me that there is going to be more cost and less service [if the local DCS office is closed]. You have to have staff available when the need is there. If the staff is 30 miles away, I just can't see that it will work well."

Johnson said each of the agency's 13 regions across the state had been given a mandate to cut its budget. The Northeast Region, of which the Greeneville DCS office is a part, had been directed to cut its 2009-10 budget by $160,000.

"It was up to the region to decide the best way to do that," Johnson said.

The decision on how to close the budget gap, Johnson said, came down to a decision to either cut jobs or close offices.

The Northeast Region of DCS, he said, proposed to cut $160,000 by closing the Greeneville and Elizabethton DCS offices and relocating the staffs of the two offices to Johnson City.

"Although no one wants to close offices, no one wants to lose positions either," Johnson said.

Another option would have been to close the Hawkins County DCS office in Rogersville, Johnson said.

But that option was discounted because DCS leaders believed it was too far from Rogersville to Johnson City.

The Greeneville office, Johnson said, does not have enough space to absorb employees from any other DCS offices.