Washington taxpayers are on the hook for a record $614 million in lawsuit payouts and legal costs from the past year, and state records show most of that money traces back to a single agency: the Department of Children, Youth and Families.
Neither outlet's number is wrong; they are simply measuring different slices of the same debt, claims alone versus claims plus what it cost the state to fight or settle them.
Couture points to a specific legal constraint: the 2021 Keeping Families Together Act, which made active parental drug use alone insufficient grounds for courts to remove a child from the home.
Couture compared the overall arrangement to consumer debt. "Think of it like a credit card, and the Legislature can set how much it's going to pay that debt down.
Bob Ferguson has floated creating an administrative panel specifically to process DCYF's backlog of "legacy" cases, older claims that predate current leadership, rather than litigating each one individually in court.
Washington's state lawsuit payouts hit a record $614 million this year, nearly five times the 2021 total, and the Department of Children, Youth and Families alone accounts for $388 million of it.