In addition, the report's numbers of missing children differ from what the Department of Law Enforcement said the agency had given them. The law enforcement agency said the DCF had reported 155 missing to them through May.In a conference call with reporters, Pintacuda said 972 children were unaccounted for. He said:
401 were classified as runaways.
135 were listed as absconded (taken by a non-custodial parent or relative).
421 were listed as "out of state" (reported to be in placements out of state but caseworkers in those states did not visit them).
10 were missing because the family had moved or was on vacation.
Caseworkers could not visit four other children because of court orders preventing them from doing so.
Pintacuda said the agency hopes to interview 265 more children by the end of the week, saying caseworkers ran out of time to interview them last month.
Asked if the agency definitely knows where those children are, Pintacuda said, "Until you see them, we don' know, but we think we know where they are.
Pintacuda defended the agency's work, saying the goal to interview all the children in one month was extremely ambitious.
He said "no state in this country" interviewed as many children as the caseworkers in Florida did last month. He said the number of runaways was not unusual, because "kids come and they go."
Pintacuda said the agency had interviewed about 98 percent of the children -- while state and federal law requires 90 percent.
"I don't know if we'll ever see 100 percent," he said. "Our people did a heck of a job."
But when a reporter said the agency still fell short of the governor's order, Pintacuda responded, "You're right."
The governor's office had no immediate comment on the report
I'd sure like to know the basic stories behind THIS little statistic.