Audit Allegedly Finds Faults With Pennsylvania's Child Abuse Hotline

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The "Child Line" is Pennsylvania's hot line for reporting suspected child abuse and neglect, but a new report reveals that the state simply cannot keep up with the volume of phone calls.

An Interim Report of Significant Matters, published recently, details findings of phones going unanswered and calls going undocumented at the state run Child Abuse hotline.

"Stunning is probably the most appropriate word," said auditor general Eugene DePasquale.

According to the report, the number of calls into Child Line either abandoned or deflected jumped to 42,000 in 2015. According to DePasquale the system has proved to be too easily overwhelmed.

"In Pennsylvania, for the Child Abuse Hotline, if you were the 31st caller you'd just get dropped," DePasquale explained.

According to the report about 1 in 5 calls are dropped and supervisors monitored just 7 out of more than 146,000 calls in 2015. This may be a likely result of staffing and funding issues. As abuse awareness grows, so do calls.

"If you can take any good out of it it's that," DePasquale said. "But the negative is that the legislature passed all these laws, then didn't prepare for the implementation."

The agency responded to the report in part;

"At its peak, the deflected and abandoned call rate was 43% in January 2015, which has reduced to 12% in March 2016. While progress has been made in improving the dropped and abandoned call rate, hiring and training additional staff, as well as improving operations, remains a priority."

DePasquale's own list of recommendations includes hiring additional staff and developing a system to screen unnecessary calls.