Robert Knodell took the helm of the Department of Social Services in 2021, getting a chance to lead one of Missouri’s most important — and challenging — agencies.
As he prepares to depart Jefferson City to serve as city manager for Poplar Bluff, Knodell is reflecting on his tenure as director — a time that included major issues with staffing and administering the department’s core services. He also served as the interim director of the Department of Health and Senior Services and as a deputy chief of staff for Gov. Mike Parson.
“I gravitated to the hard things and the things that you don't get a line of people out the door wanting to do,” Knodell said. “They’re hard jobs, and you're probably not always going to have the wins and the successes that you can have in other places. However, the work needs to be done.”
Knodell spoke with St. Louis Public Radio’s Jason Rosenbaum about some of the lessons learned during his tenure as Department of Social Services director. He also discussed the agency’s shortcomings, including backlogs among child abuse investigators that showcased major problems with pay.
Questions and answers are edited for clarity and length.
Jason Rosenbaum: When I first got to know you, you were working for the House Republican Campaign Committee — a fixture in GOP campaign politics. And then you’re heading one of the most difficult, most headache-inducing, but really critical, state agencies. Were you surprised that you became DSS director, given your background?
Robert Knodell: My career has been very interesting. I had an accounting background, and I came to Jeff City in 2003 doing fiscal notes for the oversight division of the legislature. Then I began to work for the House on the budget side, and then gravitated to the political side of things, which was actually the turn that I never anticipated.
When the governor took office under very abrupt circumstances [when Eric Greitens resigned], he needed help, and I answered that call.
And certainly it's been a blessing for me to be here. My favorite part of the entire experience has been the 6,400 employees that we have here. They’re just good people in it for the right reasons. They're very proud of the work they do, and they certainly want to see us continue to get better and do it better.
Rosenbaum: These are some of the most important jobs in state government. This is protecting kids. This is making sure Medicaid is provided to people who are eligible. It's making sure that temporary assistance for needy families gets sent to the right people. But you're also dealing with billions of dollars of federal money, and there are often complex regulations around how they can be administered and how programs can be administered. And also, you're in a post-COVID workforce where a lot of people probably left. It’s almost like the ultimate challenge.
Knodell: My first priority coming in the door was the workforce here at the department. We had 700 fewer employees the day that I got here than we do today. And you know, you're exactly correct. It was COVID-19, and people were just checking out of the workforce. Or these jobs became very difficult.
We had to focus on how we recruit employees to get people in the door? The first letter I sent to the governor when I got over here was about how we have to get serious about addressing the pay. I know a lot of people were saying the same thing. And the response was the emergency pay supplemental that we did, which had not been done before. We also had to really think outside the box as a department of how to recruit people and bring people in the door more effectively. And then the retention side, which is effective onboarding as well as making sure that people feel a sense of belonging here so that they'll stay.
Rosenbaum: One of the things that you had to deal with when you got appointed in October 2021 was the Supreme Court deciding in favor of Medicaid expansion. How do you balance the desire to roll out something that is constitutionally mandated and genuinely helps a lot of people with the realities that administering this for hundreds of thousands of people is almost never going to be seamless?
Knodell: With the expansion and during the public health emergency, which ended in 2023, nobody could be removed from the rolls. So that sort of masks the issue for a little while, because we weren't having to do redeterminations for those people.
We're at a Medicaid enrollment level where we're going to be for the foreseeable future. You know, give or take a little bit, but the bottom line is we're serving 400,000 more people than we were five years ago and with fewer staff than we had five years ago. So that is an incredible challenge for any business that's trying to do effective customer service. And that’s why I put a budget request in for this next year for another 200 staff over there.
Rosenbaum: How realistic do you think it's going to be to make sure that people who are investigating serious allegations of abuse and neglect are properly compensated?
Knodell: I hope they're able to do that. Resources may be a little bit more limited given the general revenue environment with growth. If you're not able to do large across the board increases, this may be the time to look at targeted increases for critical need positions.
So I think it's important to continue to try to at least approach the market in these child welfare jobs. Because we see what our neighboring states pay. We see what the private sector pays.
Rosenbaum: Incoming Senate President Pro Tem Cindy O’Laughlin had some pretty harsh things to say about the structure of the Children's Division. She said the entire system has failed and it needed an entire reboot, but she didn’t offer specifics.
Are there suggestions you have as far as the structure and organization of the Children's Division that you think would make it function better?
Knodell: I’m not sure there's a structural change that would make things fundamentally different. The change that needs to occur is we need to have a larger prevention staff. And the challenge that I see is that prevention in the child welfare space is not mandated in statute. Now we've been able to go to the General Assembly, and we got funded 100 prevention positions. But people shouldn't be naive that in tougher budget times, those can be scaled back to say, ‘Hey, we have to focus our resources on what is statutorily required, which gets back to investigations and that type of work.’ Making that commitment to the prevention work and putting that into statute would be very positive. But we also really have to figure out how to fund and incentivize prevention upstream of the Children's Division. Because when a hotline call comes, something has already failed in the system. And true prevention does not allow family situations to deteriorate to the point that anybody would have to call a hotline to begin with.
We've got to find a way to incentivize our community partners, public schools, the health care system and other social welfare organizations to really dive into this space and strengthen families. Those are things that I hope will get done.
Rosenbaum: Which do you think will be a harder job, DSS director or Poplar Bluff city manager, given how municipal government and politics can be the nastiest type of politics possible?
Knodell: The city council in Poplar Bluff asked me if I thought there would be more headaches or fewer headaches. And I said, ‘Well, I'm sure it's the same number, but differences in severity and duration and things like that.’
But you know, I only know one speed to work, and that's full speed. And, you know, I'm energized. This is not a retirement or a slowdown for me. This is the big chapter.
