Thomas Dwyer, the associate director of child welfare, says that budget cuts and shifting priorities at the Department of Children, Youth and Families have forced him into retirement.
Dwyer notified his superiors Tuesday that he would retire from the agency’s number-two post effective Sept. 7. After more than 30 years at the agency, Dwyer had been eligible for more than two years to retire with a pension equal to 60 percent of his salary (currently $132,963.60 a year).
And while top government officials rarely speak in detail about their reasons for leaving, Dwyer was not shy in an e-mail sent to several hundred DCYF employees last week.
He thanked them for their hard work. And he vented about the current state of affairs.
The General Assembly passed a state budget in June that affected various social services, including childcare benefits, the treatment of 17-year-old criminal suspects, and services for 18-to-21-year-olds raised in state custody.
The DCYF is also the target of a class-action lawsuit filed by the state child advocate, Jametta O. Alston. The suit alleges systemic failures at the agency that it says has caused countless cases of physical and emotional abuse among the 3,000 children in state custody.
“It is with very mixed emotions that I announce my retirement from DCYF after more than 30 years,” Dwyer said in his e-mail. “I never once regretted my career choice and I have always looked forward to coming to work in the morning.”
He continued: “The 2008 fiscal year was the most difficult I have ever endured and, regrettably, fiscal year 2009 is shaping up to be equally or even more painful. The time has come that I can no longer participate in the choices being made, which fail to make our most needy and vulnerable children a top priority.”
He also shared his thoughts on the difficulty of caring for the state’s children.
“We happen to be in a profession where our many successes are hidden, while our mistakes, or sometimes just other people’s perceptions of our mistakes, are on the front page of the newspaper. Of course we have made mistakes. With the thousands of critical decisions we make every day and night, it is inevitable.”
When contacted by Political Scene last week, Dwyer declined to immediately expand on his e-mail.

-- By Steve Peoples, Journal State House bureau