How long do you stick with what seems like an interminable wait on hold? Ten minutes? Fifteen? How about 53 minutes? That’s how long at least one person trying to report child abuse in Pennsylvania waited last year for state officials to pick up. They never did.

News broke early last year that changes to the state’s Child Protective Services law, which went into effect in January of 2015, were overloading Childline, the state-run hotline that connects caseworkers with people reporting suspected child abuse.

At least, that’s what it’s supposed to do. In 2015, it wasn’t so successful.

An interim audit by the office of Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale released last week found that nearly 42,000 calls — 22 percent — to the child abuse hotline went unanswered in 2015. The numbers were even worse that January, when Childline missed 44 percent of its calls. That’s up from just 4 percent in 2014.

The audit also highlighted a lack of internal oversight at the service, saying that supervisors monitored just seven of the 188,357 calls Childline received in 2015. That’s one half of one hundredth — .005 — of a percent.

The hotline’s infrastructure wasn’t prepared either. Half of Childline’s unanswered calls were dropped because the service’s call-waiting system can handle only 30 calls at once. Childline receives, on average, 20 calls per hour.

The blame for this failure falls on lawmakers, who saw fit to make grand legislative gestures without ensuring those mandates could be effectively carried out. The Department of Human Services, which administers the Childline program and failed to sound the alarm sooner, isn’t blameless either.

This surge in workload was entirely foreseeable. The legislative changes enacted by state lawmakers added multiple groups of people to Pennsylvania’s list of “mandated reporters” — those people who, as part of their jobs, are required to report certain information through Childline whenever they receive it. The changes also required additional training, and expanded the number of people required to go through state and federal background checks.

Was it any surprise when PennLive reported last year that the number of applications for child abuse clearances had tripled since the law took effect? The fewer than 24 state employees tasked with overseeing Childline had been inundated with 34,000 requests for clearances in January alone.

It’s very likely that some, if not many, of the calls Childline was overwhelmed with had to do with those new training and background check requirements. But as DePasquale noted last week at his press conference: “We have no way of knowing that, one way or another, and that’s our biggest problem.”

Indeed. To be effective, services like Childline depend on public trust and accountability. Is there any doubt that trust has been dramatically eroded?

If Pennsylvania wants to lead on prevention of child abuse, then our most basic tools for combating it and protecting children need to work.

That means manpower, money and oversight. Staffing at the hotline has increased by more than half, to 78 positions, and the chief of staff for Pennsylvania Children, Youth and Families now oversees the service.

Ted Dallas, the secretary of Pennsylvania DHS, has asked for $1.8 million in next year’s budget to tackle staffing and operational challenges.

It’s not enough for legislators to pass a good law if they don’t put up the money needed to make the law work. Pennsylvania is either committed to combating child abuse or it isn’t.

Let’s give Dallas and Childline what they need to return the service to a viable public service.