When caseworkers began to flee Child Protective Services in staggering numbers, someone did an exit poll. The central question: Why are you leaving?

The No. 1 answer was not "too much stress." It wasn't "too much work." And it wasn't "not enough pay for too much stress and work."

A new CPS report says the top reason for leaving was "quality of supervision. " To be blunt, the troops didn't care for their bosses.

Caseworkers described management in exit surveys as cold, caring only about "timely contacts" with families and "documentation."

Caseworkers did not dispute the importance of fulfilling legal requirements. But they left CPS, the report says, because of the message to the front lines: "If you don't like it, quit and there will be someone else graduating from training class to take your place."

So quit they did. The caseworker turnover rate has doubled since 2004 to 47.5 percent, the report says, highest among the state's major metropolitan counties in 2007.

Meanwhile, the turnover rate for investigators has soared to 75 percent. But that figure does not include investigators who were promoted or transferred to other units. Factor in those departures and the turnover rate is higher. 

Sound grim? The report says a consensus of those who interact daily with CPS conclude the system is worse today than in the crisis-filled year of 2004.

Darrell Azar, spokesman for the Department of Family and Protective Services, disagrees. 

He says CPS is removing fewer children from Bexar County homes. He notes that local adoptions increased 31 percent in the last year, and that foster care is shrinking in Bexar and across the state. And most importantly, local child-abuse deaths have fallen in each of the past two years.

"The bottom line for children," Azar says, "is they are better off today than before reform."

Reform began in 2005 with an infusion of millions of dollars in state aid. Child welfare agencies used the money to add resources and increase staffing levels.

Caseloads did drop from up to 100 for some workers in 2004 to an average of 25.5 in August 2007. But caseworkers quit twice as quickly — the turnover rate jumping from 23.1 percent in fiscal year 2004 to 47.5 percent the last fiscal year.

Chief Juvenile Probation Officer and report co-author David Reilly agrees that CPS has made advances. But he contends the staggering turnover rate has nullified that progress.

"Any substantial change in the level of child protection is not possible and will not occur until the revolving-door syndrome is successfully addressed and eliminated," the report says.

Azar acknowledges the challenge of retention, admits management needs to be strengthened and says the state is addressing these and other issues.

But he insists CPS is far better off today than in 2004.

Is it?

Noted child advocate and 225th District Judge Peter Sakai doesn't believe so. "The system is worse now," he says.

One problem, Sakai says, is management. A bigger problem is turnover.

"The impact is so immense," he says, "it can't be measured.

"Anybody new to business could not run a company with 75 percent turnover. So how can CPS run that way with any degree of sufficiency or ability?"

Azar would say CPS has trimmed the turnover rate among investigators to 50 percent. Others would say, perhaps. But CPS still has a long way to go.