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."
We slip closer to the soviet union.
I don't know why not. The thugs can take your children without legal basis, and numerous freepers applaud...
Excuse me, they haven't been convicted of anything yet! In fact, since the whole fiasco was based on a lie to begin with, the FLDS should sue TX for kidnapping the women & children. And no, I'm certainly not condoning child abuse but there hasn't been any proof that abuse occurred.
Great idea. Then you can bypass the legal system and send all the Joooz to the camps. Sieg heil, asshole.
It's called TIRED :-)
No one in this cult will go into a court of law and be place under oath and spend hours getting him are herself wrong out and wind up with more charges. And just because some low life attorney broke their word does not mean this will not be reversed, if nothing else the supreme court will say it was not ripe for the other courts review and start the whole process over.
not many freeper women willing to speak rationally on this issue
I salute you mama.
And just what is a "proper school"? I guess my son didn't go to a "proper school" in your mind because I homeschooled him. I guess you would have had my son taken away from me for abuse for homeschooling him. Who put you in charge to determine what's proper?
There were at least 5, one a victim of incest as well as statutory sexual abuse, according to the warrant for the search of the property.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0410081polygamy1.html
There’s also the 2 or 3 “disputed” minors who testified in court that they had children while younger than 18.
http://wwwwakeupamericans-spree.blogspot.com/2008/05/exclusive-attorney-for-some-flds.html
IANAL but I seem to remember that an appeal of a lower court decision hinges only upon that evidence and court record that he lower court had and acted upon. No new evidence or testimony is admissible in an appeal of a lower court decision.
So it seems to me that if the appeals court, sitting en banc, reviewed the lower court’s record and decision and ruled against the CPS action, then the Supreme Court can only review the same records of the lower court, not admit new evidence into the record.
Like I said, not a lawyer here, but I don’t see where the SC can admit and consider all kinds of new “evidence” gathered after the search and seizure of the members of the compound, nor would the “new evidence” gathered as the fruit of a tainted warrant/seizure be considered by the SC.
I think the CPS screwed themselves. And maybe the Texas Ranger’s case, which will be based upon a warrant that was based upon information/evidence gotten in the raid under the first (defective) warrant. Two defective warrants and just about anything “discovered” in the raids will be excluded from evidence, if the FLDS lawyers have any kind of brains at all.
Just my $0.02 for what it’s worth...
“This Cult” is not the father or mother of any children. It’s an organization.
I suppose that after you’ve inappropriately taken people’s kids from them, you can make the parents pay for taking care of their children. But FLDS is not a parent.
You obviously don't know jack shit about foster homes.
There are at least 5 girls who are victims, as acknowledged by the judges of the appeals court:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/DN-polygamists_24tex.ART.State.Edition2.4663fd7.html
The judges said that although CPS showed five girls still under its jurisdiction became pregnant at age 15 or 16, it was unclear how their cases applied to scores of other youngsters in the appeal.
You have inadvertently (I'm sure) explained better than most the pernicious evil of the CPS.
The parents have an absolute right under the constitution not to incriminate themselves.
So the CPS steals all their children, and the only way for them to get their children back is to give up their rights to remain silent.
This is the same trick government uses when seizing property. If they can't prove someone is selling drugs, but they can tie their property in any way to the sale or storage of any drugs, they just take the property and go to sell it. Then the people who own the property have to go to court and prove they DIDN'T commit any crimes.
That's interesting. Some people have suggested that if an 18-year-old has a 3-year-old child, it proves statutory rape.
before 2005, 14-year-olds could get married. so an 18-year-old 4 years ago could have been a married 14-year-old.
I presume the law this guy passed didn't invalidate existing marriages.
I do believe there was a lower number of boys over the age of 13 (of course that was somewhat tempered by the fact that the “teen girl” number was overinflated by the CPS thinking 27-year-old women were teenagers).
However, still to be proven is why there were fewer teenage boys.
Meanwhile, the FLDS is accused of driving teenage boys into the big city, where they are separated from their families and when picked up, put into foster homes.
The solution is for the state to take the boys when they are 10 years old, drive them into the big city, separating them from their families, and putting them into foster homes.
See the logic? If we take the boys before they are teens and put them in foster homes, they won’t be put in foster homes when they are teens.
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