The state has not made a “good faith effort” at attracting new foster homes, bringing down worker caseloads, reducing shelter use for children through age 6, staffing a hotline and finding permanent homes for foster children, according to a report from an independent oversight panel last week.

The Department of Human Services disputes that, but concedes that it isn’t meeting targets in those key areas.

The monitoring panel keeps track of 15 indicators that have to meet agreed-to benchmarks over the course of five years. Two of those years already have come and gone.

The monitors point out that the state already has put in more than $93 million and reorganized DHS, and some progress has resulted. The agency almost has eliminated shelter use for children younger than 6, increased caseworker visitation and strengthened abuse investigations involving children in institutional care. In some other areas, the monitors say they are reserving judgment on the rate of progress.

But insufficient progress is clear in the five areas listed above, and dealing with that list of unmet goals will be expensive. For example, the monitors point to a finding that fewer than 30 percent of case workers have manageable loads and that the problem is being driven by a 40 percent or higher turnover rate for new workers in some offices.

Solving the overworked caseworker problem is a two-pronged issue. The state has to hire and retain more caseworkers and reduce the number of kids who need foster care. Neither prong will be inexpensive.

There’s more at stake here than the lives of children in the state’s care — although that should be enough to motivate reform.

If the state doesn’t live up to agreed-to benchmarks — known as the Pinnacle Plan — the panel has the authority to return the issue to a federal courtroom, where Oklahoma Department of Human Services has a history of taking expensive legal drubbings. That history teaches us that the state can pay to fix this problem now gradually or pay to fix it later at a much faster pace and then pay a huge legal bill to boot.

We hope Oklahoma leaders are taking the state’s commitment to the Pinnacle Plan seriously. With sustained effort, the benchmarks can be met. Without a good-faith effort the price tag only goes up.