By Matt Largey, KUT News
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Austin, TX – The draft budget filed by the House appropriations chair last week gave a first look at the kind of cuts that state agencies could see in the next biennium. The proposal included deep cuts to education, public safety and health and human services. As KUT's Matt Largey reports, children's advocates are particularly worried about what the final budget could hold for the agency that protects children from abuse and neglect.
Sitting in her Austin office Theresa Tod gestures to the clutter of boxes around her desk
Theresa Tod: "We are well We're moving our We're condensing our operations into a smaller space because we don't have the resources - we're downsizing." Tod is the executive director of the Texas Network of Youth Services, which provides training and support services for non-profits that work with CPS. In anticipation of reduced funding, they're transitioning to a smaller operation. But that may not be an option for some of the agencies she works with.
Theresa Tod: "My fear is that some whole agencies would go away - smaller agencies. But certainly, the larger ones can withstand cuts, but the services will be cut so drastically that it will be a huge impact."
A spokesman for the Department of Family and Protective Services says the agency is still reviewing the draft budget, and waiting to see what happens as the process moves forward. But an analysis by the Center for Public Policy Priorities - an Austin-based think tank that advocates for children and the poor in Texas - found the draft House budget would force CPS to lay off more than 4-hundred caseworkers and supervisors. It would also slash child abuse and neglect prevention by 55 percent. Jane Burstain did the analysis.
Jane Burstain: "What it means ultimately is that there are going to be some children who aren't going to get any services at all and are going to stay in unsafe homes, there's going to be some children who are going to get a reduced level of services, and getting worse outcomes for children and families."
Burstain says the Legislature invested a lot in CPS over the last couple sessions, and it shows. The agency has decreased caseloads and moved more kids into permanent homes.
Burstain: "CPS has made substantial progress in the past couple of years, and all of that progress will be threatened if the budget that was laid out in House Bill 1 goes into effect."
Beyond the potential cost to the welfare of at-risk children, Burstain also worries that cutting prevention programs - those that keep kids from entering the system in the first place - will lead to even higher costs down the road.
Burstain: "There is absolutely no doubt that cutting prevention, cutting funding to keep children safe in their own homes is going to increase the number of kids who are going to come into CPS and increase the number of kids who are going to go into foster care, which is a much more expensive alternative."
The draft budget released last week is still just the baseline a starting point in a budget conversation that will last until at least May. Child advocates have called on the Legislature to dip into the state's Rainy Day fund to ease the pain for CPS, but with so many other areas of the budget suffering - there's no guarantee that the deepest cuts will be avoided.