The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services appointed a new associate commissioner to oversee child abuse and neglect investigations amid high staff turnover and a series of controversies at the agency.

Marta Talbert was given the post on Tuesday after working for more than 25 years in child welfare services, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (TDFPS) announced.

“Talbert has both experience running a large and complex program and a passion for improving the lives of Texas children and families,” TDFPS’ website reads.

Talbert will take the lead in abuse investigations as the agency looks to overcome staffing concerns and allegations of incompetence.

Roughly 40% of employees at TDFPS left their jobs in fiscal year 2022, according to The Texas Tribune. The trend follows decades of controversy at the agency.

A federal district judge ruled in 2015 that Texas violated the constitutional rights of foster children through its broken system, which was then put under federal oversight. 

“Texas’s foster care system is broken, and it has been that way for decades,” U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack wrote in the decision. “It is broken for all stakeholders, including DFPS employees who are tasked with impossible workloads. Most importantly, though, it is broken for Texas’s [permanent management conservatorship (PMC)] children, who almost uniformly leave State custody more damaged than when they entered.”

“Texas’s PMC children have been shuttled throughout a system where rape, abuse, psychotropic medication, and instability are the norm. The Court has no assurance that anything has changed,” Jack added.

Court watchdogs later alleged that children who were put in foster care after instances of sexual abuse were exposed to additional abuse within the system. Another report claimed the agency issued improper doses of medication to children.

TDFPS, meanwhile, has remained optimistic about its ability to reform the agency. In March, it announced the largest expansion to community-based care in Texas, with organizations representing nearly 50 counties in the state now exercising oversight of the foster care program in their jurisdictions.

Sharon Fonvielle-Baughman, the former director of special investigations at TDFPS who worked at the agency for a decade, alleged in a retirement letter obtained by The Texas Tribune that the agency had failed to address documented negligence. 

“Many of the retention issues may be attributed to local, and longstanding, leadership issues which have been allowed to perpetuate for years,” Fonvielle-Baughman wrote.

She claimed that employees had no time to search for runaways or interview people suspected of having seriously harmed or even killed their child, alleging that “only the numbers matter.”

“Closing cases is all that matters, not ensuring safety,” Fonvielle-Baughman wrote.