Deal wants to increase DFACS funding; move follows two firings

ATLANTA (AP) Gov. Nathan Deal has announced a plan to spend about $27 million in state and federal funding to hire new case workers and supervisors for the state Department of Family and Children's Services.

Deal spokesman Brian Robinson said Wednesday that the governor's budget proposal for fiscal year 2015, which begins July 1, will include about $7.4 million in state funding to hire additional personnel for the agency.

Robinson says the governor plans to supplement that money with federal funding and reallocate that amount in fiscal years 2016 and 2017.

Robinson says the proposal calls for hiring 146 new case workers and 29 supervisors each year.

Earlier Wednesday, the department announced the firings of two employees after the deaths of two children the agency had been involved with. Department spokeswoman Ashley Fielding said that a social services administrator and a child protective services supervisor were terminated as the "result of an ongoing investigation into the agency's handling of a child death in Paulding County."

Fielding says one of the employees was involved in the case involving 12-year-old Eric Forbes, of Paulding County, whose father has been charged in his death. Fielding says that employee was also involved in a case involving 16-year-old Markea Berry, of Smyrna. Prosecutors have said Berry weighed 43 pounds after she was allegedly starved to death.

Fielding says it's unclear what cases the other employee was involved with.