Posted on 05/24/2008 4:50:41 PM PDT by anymouse
With the price tag of providing care for more than 400 children seized last month from a polygamist ranch in West Texas expected to reach the tens of millions of dollars, a legislative panel suggested Tuesday that the state explore garnisheeing the religious organization's assets to recoup the costs.
"That compound didn't grow out of fairy dust," Sen. Robert Deuell, R-Greenville, said after a Senate Finance Committee hearing in which he urged state health officials to determine whether members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or even the sect as a whole, should be held responsible for the cost of care. "Why should we be footing the bill when they've got assets?"
The remarks came after the panel heard testimony that providing foster care, Medicaid coverage and casework for the children from the YFZ (Yearning For Zion) Ranch will likely cost taxpayers more than $1.7 million a month for as long as they are in state custody. The figure does not include the $5.3 million for the first six weeks of the operation or the cost of providing the required legal representation for each of the children, which is likely to cost at least $2.2 million.
The committee, which plays a lead role in drafting and overseeing the state budget, is exploring ways to cover the near-term costs even though no money was appropriated last year for such an event.
Legislative leaders and Gov. Rick Perry's office expect an emergency appropriation will be necessary when lawmakers return to Austin in January to ensure that the state's bills for the operation are paid.
"We basically need to pay what it's going to cost to do the job right, and we need to know, to the best of your ability, what that cost is so we can factor that in when we're making decisions about other worthwhile costs and needs in this state," Sen. Steve Ogden, a Bryan Republican who heads the finance panel, told Albert Hawkins, the state's executive commissioner for health and human services.
Law enforcement officers and officials from Child Protective Services rounded up the children from the ranch near Eldorado after an anonymous caller claimed to be a pregnant and abused 16-year-old forced into a marriage with a 50-year-old.
Officials now believe that the call may have been a hoax.
But CPS workers have said that the children were in imminent danger of abuse. In court hearings that began Monday in San Angelo, many parents are seeking to regain custody.
Deuell said efforts should be made to determine whether any of the children placed in foster care are covered by the parents' private insurance. If so, he said, the state would not have to enroll them in the taxpayer-supported Medicaid program.
Hawkins said it is unclear whether sect members have private insurance. He also said that officials have found no evidence that anyone from the sect is receiving public assistance.
Even if the adults do have private insurance, the children would still likely require Medicaid coverage, Hawkins said, because DNA testing to determine parentage is expected to take up to two months to complete.
Rod Parker, a spokesman for the FLDS, said any effort to seize assets would be an overreach by the state.
"I think my response is to ask the state on what legal grounds it believes it would be entitled to take FLDS assets," Parker said in an e-mail to the Star-Telegram. "This is a country of laws; they cannot simply go after assets without legal basis."
Local rumor is that there is natural gas or petroleum suspected on their land —
$4,100 per month PER CHILD? Who says that government is wasteful and inefficient? </sarc>
So what if they lied to the owners about what they were going to do with the property? After they bought it they are entitled to do whatever they liked with it. That is the whole idea of “private property”.
Yes I'm sure they are keeping a two bit commissioner up to date. NOT!
That article contains one factual error (at least) “A tip from a anonymous caller”.
Nope, it was some woman in AZ who called 911 and lied like a rug about the sect, that should not be simply glossed over.
Add in the Appeals Court saying the DHS was in error by removing all of the children even ones that were of legal age, and this just gets uglier.
But according to the state of Texas, it costs $4,100 PER CHILD PER MONTH to care for and feed them.
And how many young girls have kids on the ground are on the way, some both. Don't have to many brain storms you may rupture something.
To my knowledge their has been NO evidence of child abuse.
The GOP's record in Texas and nationally exemplifies the adage that power corrupts.
Darn tooting. If heretics want a trial they can pay for it
Inquistion Rules
BUMPS to THAT.
But according to the state of Texas, it costs $4,100 PER CHILD PER MONTH to care for and feed them.
__________________________________________________-
Well then it seems cheaper to leave the children where they are...
The cult spends millions at the compound...
And err...
Source please ?????????????
You are wrong on all counts. I am a grandmother who knows that no adult has the right to abuse a child for any reason. Dumping boys on the side of the road so they don’t provide competition for the older men who are building their harems is child abuse. Forcing young teen girls to have sex with middle-aged men is child abuse. Former FLDS women have documented both of these despicable practices in books and in television interviews.
As a Christian, it is my responsibility to speak for “the least of these,” because Jesus makes it my responsibility. If some weird group wants to have child sacrifices, are we to “live and let live” because they “have the pursuit of happiness by one’s own understanding?” That is an absurd abdication of one’s responsibility to society, and would result in the law of the jungle, where the young and the defenseless would be the victims.
Are you a dingbat? If you buy property, it doesn’t matter what the heck you do with it if within zoning. Are you so freaking ignorant that you would try to assert that was a problem or hahahahah funny and forgot to put your sarcasm tag on your post. Really. I can’t believe people are so stupid on property rights.
Actually the hoax caller was in CO not AZ.
Shoot the one they've convicted and given the death penalty to -- then bill their family for the charges, including the cost of the bullet!
So what? It's private property - there's no responsibility to tell the truth about intended use of land when making a purchase.
How many children were being abused?
Flunked out of law school did you???
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