Topeka ? A task force that Kansas lawmakers set up to study the state’s child welfare system will hold its first substantive meeting Tuesday as it begins a top-to-bottom review of the state’s foster care system and other child welfare services.

Lawmakers passed a bill setting up the task force during the 2017 session following a series of reports about children who have died while in state custody, as well as other problems within the system.

“We know from Legislative Post Audit, we know from anecdote, and we know from media reports that we have some serious issues in our child welfare system,” Sen. Laura Kelly, D-Topeka, and a member of the task force, said during a telephone interview Monday. “The agency has been less than forthright in admitting that there are issues and doing their own investigation, problem-solving to figure out how we might do things differently so we can get better outcomes.

Rep. Steve Alford, R-Ulysses, the task force chairman, put it more succinctly during a separate interview.

“Primarily, there’s basically a complete breakdown,” he said.

The task force is made up of six legislators and 10 people with different kinds of expertise in the child welfare system, including people from the judicial branch, law enforcement and social welfare, as well as foster care advocates and others.

The group is expected to file an initial report when the 2018 Legislature convenes in January. But its final report isn’t due until January 2019, after next year’s elections, when a new administration will be in place.

“This administration is in its last year,” Kelly said. “They’re a lame duck. I expect there will be lots of changes and churning going on as they wind down their tenure. And we just felt that, if we really wanted to get long-term change implemented that it made more sense to wait until we had a new administration with new eyes, new ears, a new attitude to implement the findings of the task force.”

The task force will meet for most of the day Tuesday. In the morning, but most of the substantive discussion will take place in the afternoon when members begin discussing their own expectations for what they want to accomplish.

Kelly said she believes the Department for Children and Families has been plagued by under-funding, under-staffing and the loss of many veteran employees since Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration came into office.

“The fact that we have a record number of kids in foster care is probably the thing we should be most worried about,” Kelly said. “The system is not working when we put kids in foster care and can’t get them out.

Alford, however, said he doesn’t believe the problem is limited to DCF. He said the entire system, which involves the courts, social workers, attorneys and a host of other players has become too cumbersome and unwieldy.

“Basically there’s kind of an underlining that we’re not serving those children correctly,” he said.