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."
This is a lawyer’s dream of people suing the government.
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I bet they wont have standing before the court...
Well we will just take you at your word, you don't have any.
The $4100 per month? Quick math $1.7 million/400
If this is over-ruled and child abuse is proved then yeah...go for it. Make that compound a women/childrens shelter for abused women all over the state to seek shelter and education.
Since most of the men are going to be facing criminal charges, I think not, and every woman there that wants to keep her children will never get on a witness stand. Remember any time you file, the other side gets to put you on the witness stand. Let the cult try it??
Pure, bs from someone that dose not know how it works.
ROFLOL
Much easier, just as Hildawg!
From the article..
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.
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But in your # 26 to me you said..
“But according to the state of Texas, it costs $4,100 PER CHILD PER MONTH to care for and feed them.”
and in your # to me you said..
“The $4100 per month? Quick math $1.7 million/400”
I understand that the math works like that...
However Medicare..Which they were not getting...no doctors visits ...no shots etc..
And other care is included besides food...
The children are going to a proper school...
(I’ve been informed that even illegal aliens have a right to go to school)
And the young boys of 11 and 12 and up are not forced to work like dogs and slaves and have their wages stolen from them...and then tossed out to fend for themselves..
And the girls are not terrorized by empty futures which only entail being part of a harem as a sex slave at a VERY young age..
The children have some kind of stability right now...
And are not in danger...
And are not subjected to emotionless, robotron women ...
“one’s responsibility to society,”
Thank you. You have explained your position perfectly. You are a socialist, not an individualist.
Since when did Christians (not Universalist/Unitarians) swallow the humanist position that one’s responsibility was to society. The Christians I know believe their responsibility is to God, and that their relationship to others is one of benevolence, not interference in their lives. Show me one place in the New Testament where Paul, James, Peter, or the Gospel writers ever advocated using the government to interfere in other’s lives, even when they did not agree with how they lived their lives.
In the present case, nothing has been proved about anyone being abused and you want to use force to confiscate their property—earned by hard work, which evidently you do not value.
I’m sorry, your claim to be a Christian is totally unconvincing.
Hank
This is a mess. The state is going to be hit with lawsuits into the tens if not hundreds of millions, and the legislature is worried about who’s going to pay for the raid? I don’t agree with the FLDS on any level. I think it’s creepy, but if the state can’t prove abuse, Texans are going to pay.
You’re right. They need to prove abuse in every home or they are open to lawsuits since they operated outside the law.
This cult can well afford to pay for the support of “their” children...
Fortunately, my 10 kids don’t cost me $750 per child per day.
The costs of the raid will quickly pale next to the settlements the taxpayers will be paying to the FLDS families for taking their children. How ironic that they will be using tax money to fund the very religion they want to shut down.
Agreed.
“This cult can well afford to pay for the support of “their” children...”
There is a far cry between children who’ve been removed via due process, and children who were rounded up as an act of religious persecution and public hysteria. I know that in the states where I’ve lived, it takes a ton of reasons (all proved to a judge) before a child is removed from the home, and a lot of court hearings before the child is placed into foster care.
The cost of the raid will pale in comparison to the amount paid out by the State of Texas to this group when the lawsuits hit. If even one parent can show that their children were removed w/o due process and due cause, then you’re gonna see that cost magnified by an order of ten.
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