Governor Corzine was committed to using existing resources to create the new department and merely carved out the existing budget and programs under the old DHS Office of Children Services. Many of the new dollars reflected in the DCF budget are simply funds shifted from the Department of Human Services. These funds support operations such as institutional abuse investigations and Human Services police that were already serving the child welfare programs but were not specifically noted in the budget for the Offices of Children Services. As such this shift of funding from DHS to DCF does not result in an increase or decrease in services in either department.
Any costs to set up logistically the new DCF have been offset by cost savings achieved through greater efficiencies created with existing resources.