Machine malfunction wins: House overturns bill by Dallas senator

UPDATE: Word is, some Republicans have agreed to help bring up the bill for reconsideration and vote for it if it gets amended to remove private schools from having to report their special ed, etc., information to the agency.
Looks like the bill could end up passing after all if this gets worked out. We'll keep you posted.
A bill by Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, would have created the Interagency Council for Addressing Disproportionality to study why children of racial and ethnic minorities are seem to show up in higher numbers in the state's foster care, juvenile justice, special ed and criminal justice systems.

Brooks: http://dallasne.ws/ik4Z3h

‘Kinship care’ plan cheats a budgetary death

One in an occasional series

AUSTIN — Sometimes, millions of dollars fall off the table. Just like that.

And sometimes, they jump right back — with an unexpected thud.

Last week, a tiny state program called “kinship care” cheated death that way — at least for now.

Garrett: http://dallasne.ws/fhW8ny

Texas harms foster children with inattention, shoddy system, lawsuit says

AUSTIN — Texas violates the rights of abused and neglected children by running a shoddy foster care system, the New York-based group Children’s Rights says in a class-action federal lawsuit filed Tuesday.
Too many youths are isolated and linger for years in care, the suit says.
The state that says it is working on fixes and that most foster children are safe.

Garrett: http://dallasne.ws/hH60So

Budget would kill stipends that keep kids with family, not in foster care

In early drafts of the budget, there are 460 agency missions, known as “strategies,” with two zeroes beside them, meaning they would be totally eliminated. This is the story of one of those: The 6-year-old push at CPS to save huge foster care bills for taxpayers by using limited stipends to nudge relatives, godparents and even good neighbors to take in abused and neglected children. In the current budget cycle, the program is spending about $17 million and provides payments to parents of nearly 12,000 children.

Garrett:  http://dallasne.ws/g6ihkZ

Cuts to foster care, child protection draw fire

 State protective services chief Anne Heiligenstein dropped some bad news on Senate budget writers today: Her year-old push to redesign the payment system for foster care providers will be a non-starter if lawmakers approve proposed cuts that would effectively drive down rates by 12 percent. Abused and neglected children with complex emotional and psychiatric problems often are ripped from their home communities in North Texas and shipped down I-45 to so-called "residential treatment centers" in the Houston area, Heiligenstein has said, saying she'd like to change that. An agreed-upon overhaul of rates and contracting would put a private provider in charge of a region, which would include a duty to make sure there are enough beds close to home.

Garrett: http://dallasne.ws/fysfIO

Blue-ribbon panel presents plan for overhauling Texas' foster care system

AUSTIN – Texas would pay for performance in foster care and cede more authority to private contractors under a major overhaul recommended by a blue-ribbon panel. The proposal, in the works for a year, calls for the state to scrap its current system allowing anyone to start a private child-placing agency and ask to care for abused and neglected children. That would be replaced with a new arrangement in which one outfit becomes the lead provider in a region.

Garrett reports: http://dallasne.ws/gsyQ3c

Troubled foster children from Dallas are often shipped far from home, state official says

Garrett has the story:

AUSTIN — The most distressed foster children in state care too often are sent far from their home counties, especially if they’re from North Texas, the state’s top protective services official said today.

The Dallas-Fort Worth region is home to only six of the 66 residential treatment centers that are under contract with the state to care for abused and neglected youngsters, Anne Heiligenstein told a Texas House panel.
http://dallasne.ws/drcn8q

More Texas youths placed in foster care

Bob Garrett reports:

AUSTIN – Texas' foster care rolls have surged, outstripping expectations by more than 1,000 youngsters this year, Child Protective Services officials said Thursday.
http://tinyurl.com/254jg7r