State Sen. Chris Elliott (R-Josephine) is not happy with the governor’s response to a tragedy while a child was in the custody of the Alabama Department of Human Resources (DHR).

A 3-year-old Alabama boy died Tuesday after he was left alone inside a hot vehicle for nearly five hours. Ketorrius “KJ” Starks Jr. of Bessemer was found dead after he was accidentally left inside the vehicle while in the care of Covenant Services, a third-party contractor for DHR.

RELATED: Three-year-old dies after being left in hot car while in DHR custody

Despite the tragedy happening under DHR’s watch, Gov. Kay Ivey said that she “remains confident” in commissioner Nancy Buckner.

Elliott discussed the issue Friday on FM Talk 106.5’s “The Jeff Poor Show.”

“I don’t think the Governor’s response was adequate at all. I’ll say that. You know, this is an absolute tragedy. This is embarrassing on top of that,” Elliott said.

“I cannot imagine a situation where you proclaim someone is not taking care of their child so much so that you have to remove them from their parents’ custody. And then you, as a contractor or an agency, end up forgetting them in the back of the car to the point you cause their death. That is just horrific.”

The lawmaker believes the state government should take more responsibility in response to the situation.

“Agencies, the Governor, we all should take responsibility for this and look deeply into what happened and why,” he argued. “Same with this immigration stuff, simply passing it off and saying, ‘Oh, that was a contractor. That was not our responsibility,’ or, ‘That person has been terminated,’ I think, is an inadequate explanation. I think we all need, the executive branch, certainly, because that is who hired the contractor. That’s who runs the agency. That’s who is ultimately responsible. You know the old saying, ‘The buck stops here’? Well, I think some may have forgotten that. That’s not OK.”

Elliott also thinks the Legislature will need to act in some way to ensure this kind of tragedy doesn’t happen again in Alabama.

“The onus lies on the Legislature, as well,” he said. “We need to make sure we provide the funding that is necessary to perform this task. And if we’re not going to pay people enough to do this job, which I think we can all agree is no fun, then are those parents just not better off with their parents?”

Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on X @Yaffee