Group homes for kids are filled to the brim and costing the state twice as much as it was just four years ago. These problems stem from 2009 budget cuts and reductions in staff and in family programs.

Last year Arizona spent $79 million on congregate care for kids who are removed from their homes. There are three types of care: emergency shelters, group homes and residential treatment centers. During the recession there were cuts to child-care assistance, health care, and domestic violence shelters.

“All of those services were cut in a very short time. Sooner or later the system was going to get backed up and sure enough starting about two years ago it did," said Christine Scarpati, CEO of the Child Crisis Center in Mesa. "Because families weren’t getting services. Families who were needing and reaching out for help. It wasn’t available and kids were not returning home.”

Scarpati said without those prevention programs, more kids needed to be removed from home.

In 2013 it was learned the former Child Protective Services Agency didn’t investigate sixty five hundred reported cases. Jennifer Bowser-Richards of the newly formed Department of Child Safety said in an earlier interview those cases spanned from 2009 to 2013.

“But the vast majority of them were actually during 2013. Our last report between October 2013 and March 2014. We had almost 23,000 reports received in just that six month period," Bowser-Richards said.

The auditor general’s report released last week shows the number of children in congregate care has decreased nationally in the last few years, but in Arizona it has increased by two percent.

Budget cuts have also reduced services to reunite families, so kids were staying on average 23 days longer in congregate care in 2012 than in 2010.