A Petition in Behalf of the
Forsaken Children of Texas to the
Governor and the 76th Legislature
VI. AN EVALUATION OF CPS's RESOURCES
A. Dollars
First, we need to establish what CPS has actually been given. Based upon data obtained from CPS, Charts 13 and 14 provide this number from 1985 through the present biennium. The total is divided between the two charts. Chart 13 shows total dollars less dollars paid for substitute care. Substitute care means a paid placement outside the home, for example, foster care or residential treatment. Chart 14 shows total dollars for substitute care. This division between program dollars and placement dollars is the answer to the question--where did all the money and manpower go?
Here is how: Over time, the demographics confronting CPS have dramatically changed. Chart 15 illustrates this change. Counting cumulatively, in 1985, CPS had legal responsibility, what the Texas Family Code calls managing conservatorship, for 8,806 children. Again counting cumulatively, in 1985, CPS had physical responsibility for 5,226 children in foster care. Sometimes the court makes CPS the managing conservator for the children, and thus legally responsible for them, but places the children with extended family, close friends, or even a parent. CPS is therefore responsible for more children than just those in foster care. So the job confronting CPS in 1985 was to deal with reports of abuse and neglect from the general population of 4.8 million children, while being legally responsible for 8806 children, of which 5226 were in foster care.
In 1997, the job was very different. At that point, CPS had to deal with reports of abuse and neglect from the general population of 5.5 million, while being legally responsible for 23,595 children, of which 17,485 were in foster care. Chart 16 shows the increase of children in conservatorship and in foster care per 1000 population from 1985 to 1997. The number goes from 1.8 and 1.1 per 1000 in 1985 to 4.3 and 3.2 per 1000 in 1997.
Understanding these demographics and the interplay between the money on Chart 13 and Chart 14 is important. All the money on Chart 13 is not allocated to dealing with children outside the system. Most of the money on Chart 13 goes to support the placement of the children paid for by dollars from Chart 14, for example, for caseworkers who oversee the placements, work with the families, and prosecute the legal cases. The more children in the system, the more dollars from Chart 13 go to support their placement, consequently the less resources to deal with the children outside the system--thus an ever declining number of investigations and confirmations.
Remember that hypothetical overwhelmed police department that started screening its 911 calls tighter and tighter as the phone rang more and more? Imagine what would happen if that same department had to both catch the crooks and lock them up out of the same budget. As more and more crooks were locked up, there would be less and less money to catch new ones. CPS has that same problem.
Chart 17 drives this point home. But before explaining how, a word of explanation about Chart 17 is necessary. When researching for this petition why investigations and confirmations were going down, one hypothesis was that total dollars to CPS had not kept up with inflation or population growth. As it turns out, that is not the case. Chart 17 adjusts for inflation by converting all the dollars before 1997 to 1997 dollars (based upon a formula obtained from the Comptroller of Public Accounts) and then dividing the dollars per 1000 child population in each year. As you can see, even adjusting for inflation and population, the Legislature has significantly increased real, total dollars for CPS.
Of course, it is important to keep in mind that while resources have increased since 1985 even after adjusting for inflation and population growth, real dollars went down in three of the five years between 1993 and 1997. As a comparison between Chart 5 and Chart 17 shows, in the five years before 1994, CPS improved its performance with regard to investigations, in the five years beginning with 1994, as dollars declined, so did CPS's performance.
What Chart 17 mainly illustrates, however, is the relationship between the number of program dollars per 1000 child population and the number of placement dollars per 1000 child population. The gap in favor of program dollars narrows until 1996; since then the gap has favored placement dollars. Chart 18 illustrates the relative significance of placement dollars to program dollars. As you can see from Chart 18: In 1985 for every $100 CPS spent on program, CPS spent $36 on placement. In 1998, for every $100 CPS spent on program, CPS spent $112 on placement. Again, as you consider Chart 17, you must keep in mind that most of the program dollars in the first bar actually go to support the placement dollars spent in the second bar. The bottom line--the children in the system are taking an increasing share of the resources to the detriment of the children outside the system.
B. Staffing
You see the same pattern when you look at staffing. Take a look at Chart 19, which shows full time equivalents (FTEs) from 1985 to 1997. To make comparisons meaningful, you must adjust the numbers for child population. Chart 20 does that.
Now go back to the demographics as set out on Chart 13. Remember that in 1985 the job of the 2,525 FTEs was to deal with abuse and neglect in a general population of 4.8 million and deal with legal responsibility for 8,806 children with 5,226 children in foster care. The job of the 4,437 FTEs in 1997 was to deal with abuse and neglect in a general population of 5.5 million and deal with legal responsibility for 23,595 children, with 17,485 children in foster care.
While there has been staff growth relative to general population, staff has significantly declined relative to both legal responsibility and foster care as shown below:
YEAR |
FTEs |
PER 1000 CHILD POPULATION |
PER 1000 CVS |
PER 1000 FOSTER CARE |
1985 |
2525 |
0.53 |
287 |
483 |
1986 |
2868 |
0.58 |
327 |
567 |
1987 |
2738 |
0.55 |
324 |
534 |
1988 |
2916 |
0.58 |
308 |
520 |
1989 |
3072 |
0.60 |
293 |
496 |
1990 |
3392 |
0.68 |
287 |
474 |
1991 |
3648 |
0.72 |
261 |
436 |
1992 |
3665 |
0.70 |
177 |
245 |
1993 |
4629 |
0.90 |
211 |
282 |
1994 |
4936 |
0.95 |
213 |
293 |
1995 |
5064 |
0.96 |
210 |
288 |
1996 |
4451 |
0.82 |
183 |
248 |
1997 |
4437 |
0.81 |
188 |
254 |
Charts 20, 21, and 22 illustrate this data with bar graphs. The bottom line is that there has been a 34% drop of staff per 1000 children in conservatorship and a 47.4% drop of staff per 1000 children in foster care from 1985 to 1997.
No analysis of caseloads is presented for two reasons. First, this big picture analysis seems to explain better where all the money and manpower has gone. Second, CPS does not have reliable annual caseload data for historical comparisons. Needless to say, however, you will find that caseloads in Texas are too high. The Child Welfare League of America recommends that an investigator have a caseload of 12, but Texas investigators may carry double that load. For example, investigators in Travis County right now carry 22 cases.
Because of the way CPS keeps its data, CPS has no readily available caseload figures broken down between investigators and conservatorship workers across the state. CPS says that the average caseload of all workers is 27. Dividing workers into cases derives this figure. But "authorized" workers and "on-the-job" workers are two different things. In a vicious cycle, because of the high caseloads, CPS has high turnover, and because of the high turnover, CPS has high caseloads. Those on the job on any given day often have caseloads far in excess of the theoretical average.
To give some meaning to a caseload, imagine what faces an investigator and a caseworker. An investigator must walk into one troubled and often dangerous situation after another to investigate the maltreatment of children. Imagine what it is like to make the call to leave a child in a marginal home. Imagine what it is like to remove a child from her mother. Imagine carrying the responsibility for making these life and death decisions with a constant active caseload of 30 to 50 children instead of the recommended 18 to 30 children.
For children who are removed, the caseworker becomes the guardian. Think how much time and energy you have spent as guardian of your own children. Imagine being responsible for a caseload of sixty children for whom you must find and monitor a home, set up medical appointments, psychotherapy, and school conferences, and keep the books for federal and state audits. Add to that job developing and implementing a plan to rehabilitate the children's families. Then add on top of it all being embroiled in twenty or so simultaneous, major court custody battles over those children. Then imagine doing all that an investigator or caseworker must do for $24,000 a year.
C. Workload
More children are in care in 1997 than in 1985 because as CPS removes children from abusive or neglectful homes, the children stay in care until they are returned to family, are adopted, or turn eighteen; so as time passes, the cumulative number of children in care grows. The increased growth of children in care has not been lost on the state leadership. Indeed, as already mentioned, under the leadership of Governor Bush, the 75th Legislature passed revolutionary legislation to move children from temporary substitute care as quickly as possible. The legislative goal is 1) to return children to parents or other relatives when possible as quickly as possible, which is better for the children and less costly to the state, and 2) when it is not possible to return children, to free them for adoption when possible as quickly as possible, which again is better for children and less costly to the state.
CPS is now engaged in a tremendous push to meet the new strict legislative requirements as to how long children can be in temporary substitute care. But as every capitalist knows, it takes money to make money. Moving children quickly to permanency--whether back to family or on to adoption--requires staff and services. This push only intensifies the struggle over resources between those children in the system and those children outside the system. And, like an ever-tightening loop, when more children are brought into the system from outside the system, the struggle between those inside and those outside further intensifies.
Just think of CPS as the state's child rescue boat. The CPS boat is so heavily loaded with previously rescued children that it moves slowly to the scene of the next crisis and once there has little space for new passengers. (But don't get the impression that the boat is the Good Ship Lollipop for those aboard. The boat is crowded and the rations short.)
Texas of course has a resource problem beyond the struggle between the children in the boat and those in the water. As you know from your study of juvenile crime in the last two legislative sessions, the problems of children and the problems with children are far more complex in 1998 than they were in 1985. While appropriations for child protection have gone up even when adjusted for inflation and population, they have not kept pace with the seriousness of the problems facing the Child Protective Service.
To extend the metaphor of the rescue boat, CPS is sailing in shark-invested waters. Increasing poverty. Increasing use of drugs and alcohol. Crack cocaine. Increasingly violent children. Increasingly sexualized children. Babies having babies. Families deteriorating. All the problems of families and children facing Texas hit the Child Protective Service first and harder. As the next section explains, for the sake of Texas, the CPS rescue boat must arrive quicker on the scene with more room on board and more hands on deck.
