Free Republic

SAN ANTONIO - Saying that Texas' child-protection safety net has become dangerously frayed, Gov. Rick Perry on Thursday called for spending nearly $330 million to hire about 800 new investigators and to drastically cut the workloads and boost the pay of caseworkers. "This reform plan calls for significantly lower caseloads, better use of technology to assist workers in the field and a complete restructuring of the agency," Perry said in a San Antonio courtroom where he unveiled his much-anticipated proposal for overhauling the state's Child Protective Services division. "And most importantly, it provides a new framework to better protect vulnerable...