Heidi Mueller comes to her position as the former director of the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice, and following the resignation of her predecessor, Marc Smith, who was found in contempt of court a dozen times during his four-and-a-half-year tenure at the agency. The state’s proposed 2025 budget invests $100 million into DCFS.
A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.