A new centralized computer system designed to keep Ohio's abused and neglected children safer is so full of glitches that child-welfare advocates worry it could cause caseworkers to lose track of foster children.

The Public Children Services Association of Ohio has asked the state to stop adding new counties to the system until the problems are fixed.

"There is a big risk," said Crystal Ward Allen, executive director of the association.

Allen said the new system, launched in about half the state's 88 counties so far, left out many foster-care providers who did not have children in their homes at the time the computer system went online.

When children are subsequently placed in those homes, county agencies cannot add their cases to the new computer system, Allen said.

In a resolution passed this month, the association's board of trustees urged the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services to delay the rollout and to remember the missing foster-child crisis that unfolded five years ago in Florida.

A 5-year-old Miami girl was missing for 15 months before that state's Department of Children & Families realized she was gone. An investigation later revealed that the agency had, at least temporarily, been unable to find 102 children.

The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services recognizes that the new computer system has problems, Director Helen Jones-Kelley said. But the state is on a strict timeline and does not want to delay the $93 million project, which finally began last year after a decade of bungled plans and missed deadlines.

Jones-Kelley said the state started to enter the missing foster-family data last week. As they discover problems, counties send the information to the state, either on paper or electronically, and state workers enter it into the main system, she said.

Jones-Kelley said the state is current to Aug. 1 with what has been forwarded. "And we'll work through the weekend."

An electronic fix likely won't happen until after January, when all counties are supposed to be using the Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information System. In Franklin County, Children Services Executive Director Eric Fenner said caseworkers are using backup systems, such as putting on paper all information that cannot be entered into the system.

"All the children in our care, we know where they are. The problem is, they are not all in (the computer system)," he said. "It creates an enormous strain."

Agency directors throughout the state say the system also has led to glitches and delays in payments to families, and threatens the accuracy of child-welfare statistics, which must be reported to the federal government.

When complete, the centralized system is expected to boost safety and communication by making child-abuse and neglect information available on one network, officials said.

Tracking abusers and victims across county lines has been difficult for Ohio's 88 children-services agencies, which operate independently but are overseen by the state.

The transition is difficult, Jones-Kelley said. "But we will have, in Ohio, the state-of-the-art child-welfare information system."

rprice@dispatch.com