The Philadelphia City Controller's office is poised to look into the city Department of Human Services' practices for removing children from parents, in response to Legal Intelligencer coverage on abuse and oversight issues in foster care and individual citizen tips about the agency.

Though not final, City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart said in an interview with The Legal on Monday that a performance audit of DHS is on the “short list” of agencies the watchdog office may pursue in its 2019 audit schedule. Chief among her concerns is how DHS removes children from their parents' homes for poverty-based reasons.

“DHS is a big area of the city's budget and is charged with caring for the children in our city,” Rhynhart said. “The reporting that's been done on the issues about kids who have been taken from their parents unfairly and also some of the abuse children have suffered could be cause for concern and it's something my office is looking into.”