SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – The state’s child welfare agency, preparing to cut almost 200 employees amid a budget crisis, says it needs remaining staff members punching in on overtime to investigate child abuse, The Associated Press has learned.

In an e-mail sent Monday and obtained by the AP, the Department of Children and Family Services told the union representing workers that it will lose 27 of 39 investigators at its Maywood office to layoff or reassignment.

A DCFS spokesman said the agency will need to pay overtime at Maywood and other offices while it trains people moving into new jobs, not to do extra work because of laid-off workers.

But the memo doesn’t mention training. It says the extra work is necessary for “case overtime” because of the layoffs, “the impact of which will be tremendous.”

Union officials and children’s advocates say they’re flabbergasted the agency would request overtime when it’s cutting staff. They claim the agency already is understaffed and has caseloads that exceed limits set by a 17-year-old court order.

“It’s nonsensical and it’s dangerous. It puts kids more at risk. The department is already far too short of staff and the stakes couldn’t be higher,” AFSCME spokesman Anders Lindall said.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich has refused to sign legislation that the General Assembly sent him providing money to sustain jobs – more than 320 in all – that he plans to cut Nov. 30 at DCFS, the Department of Human Services, and elsewhere.

DCFS will lay off 179 and move 127 to other jobs.

The reductions are part of $1.4 billion Blagojevich sliced from an out-of-balance budget in June. Then in September, lawmakers sent him legislation to restore some of them, including sparing the layoffs, with $230 million.

But Blagojevich has balked because the national economy has further dampened the fiscal outlook. He said Tuesday the budget gap would be $2 billion and asked legislative permission for emergency budget authority to cut more.

The e-mail was sent by a midlevel manager, DCFS spokesman Kendall Marlowe said. It requests AFSCME’s “agreement” to “use Cook County staff investigators … for case overtime at Maywood,” just west of Chicago. The office will lose 69 percent of its staff members who receive allegations of child abuse and neglect and review them to determine whether they’re true.

Under its contract with the state, AFSCME must approve required overtime, Lindall said, but the union refused. Marlowe countered that the contract requires the union’s involvement but not its permission.

Advocates say the action is another perplexing spin on a merry-go-round of the budgetary disagreement between Blagojevich and lawmakers.

“The system is being stretched to limits beyond what is healthy for kids,” said Sean Noble spokesman for Voices for Illinois Children.