Tyler DeLeon would have been 9 today, had he lived.

But that would have required food and water – vital resources that a coroner’s report said the Stevens County boy lacked prior to his death on Jan. 13, 2005, his 7th birthday.

Social workers and teachers at Tyler’s school had reported what they considered signs of physical abuse. A Seattle pediatrician concluded Tyler was emotionally abused. An autopsy found that the boy, who weighed the same 28 pounds at age 7 as he had at 4, had been deprived of food and water. Stevens County authorities investigated and filed a homicide-by-neglect case with then-Prosecutor Jerry Wettle.

Last July, a year and a half after the child’s death, Wettle charged Carole Ann DeLeon, Tyler’s adoptive mother, with second-degree murder. In September Wettle lost his re-election bid to new Prosecutor Tim Rasmussen, who has shown some of the prosecutorial energy that was missing for 18 months. That’s encouraging.

But if the justice system was slow to start pursuing answers about how the tragedy happened and whether there is criminal accountability, an even larger concern was the state social service structure’s failure to respond on the child’s account when it might have helped.

Fortunately, that shortcoming is being addressed too, starting with a heightened urgency about reacting to complaints involving suspected child abuse.

On the day Tyler died nine days had elapsed since officials at his school notified Child Protective Services about their fears. Agency policies in force at the time allowed caseworkers up to 10 days to follow up on the complaint. They still had one more day.

Tyler DeLeon wasn’t the only child in Washington to pay the price of an inadequate safety net, and when Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire appointed a new secretary of Social and Health Services, Robin Arnold-Williams, both of them agreed that a 10-day response policy was unacceptable, even if the agency was shorthanded. They tightened standards (now 24 hours in potentially life-threatening cases like Tyler’s) and began reassigning personnel from less critical assignments. They made caseload reduction a budgetary priority.

Gregoire now says that staffing levels can no longer be used as an excuse if a case like Tyler DeLeon’s occurs. The governor says the next step is to assure that those caseworkers, some of whom were moved into the role abruptly, are adequately and properly trained so their response can be followed up with a suitable evaluation and, if necessary, intervention. Lawmakers and other state officials should consider that task a must.

Two years after Tyler DeLeon’s last birthday, there is reason to hope that the state is putting itself in a better position to prevent similar tragedies involving other children.