Friday, August 31st, 2007...7:26 am
CPS Reform Hearings
The Citizen ran an editorial yesterday lauding Jonathan Paton’s planned hearings on Child Protective Services. For once, I see both the media and elected officials recognize that the directive to CPS to intervene when children may be in danger is in conflict with the policy of the Department of Health Services to keep families together.
Although Paton has been talking about things like the lack of response to calls, I don’t hear him calling for either hiring more case workers or paying them a bit better so that there is not so much turnover of experienced staff. Given how underpaid and overworked these folks are, I am suprised at how often they do a good job.
I also worry about the motives of his colleagues. Although the tragedies that prompted Paton to go into action here were examples of a lack of intervention by CPS, the argument from many in the Republican caucus for years has been that CPS intervenes too much and breaks up families. Paton’s fellow Republicans may be cheering him on now because it gives them a chance to bash a state bureaucracy, but are they actually interested in fixing things? The motivation here may be to reform CPS, but there is a big danger here of this hearing being yet another excuse for some of Paton’s colleagues to subpoena and berate state employees.
6 Comments
August 31st, 2007 at 9:31 am
While it might feel good to write that Jonathan Paton has less than sincere intentions OR that he and his GOP colleagues are merely trying to bash the state infrastructure is not based in reality.
This is an issue Mr Paton feels passionately about and he has long spoken out in favor of reforms within CPS. With all of the children who have been abandoned, neglected and yes killed under CPS’ watch thank goodness someone like Jonathan Paton comes along to shed some light where no one else in the Democrat Party has the courage to go. The adminstration of CPS has long been sub standard. These problems have existed under both Republican and Democrat administrations.
Under Governor Napolitano the structural problems within the agency have been worsened.The leadership within the agency must be examined. Solutions should be sought on a bi partisan level. We’ve thrown billions of dollars at CPS over the past decade. What do we have to show for all of our efforts ? Just throwing more money is not the answer. There must be fundamental change in how we deal with our most vulnerable populations.
Jonathan Paton is a good man who sees something that is wrong and wants to do something to change course. This is to be applauded not criticized.
Bruce Ash
Tucson,AZ
August 31st, 2007 at 10:21 am
Funny thing, Bruce, I didn’t criticize Paton.
What I did criticize is the attitude of his fellow legislators towards the department and my doubts about their interest in fixing the agency. Your attack on the governor here just helps prove my point about how these things just eventually turn into another excuse for Republicans to scapegoat the governor. Heck, they haven’t even had the hearings yet and here you are, the RNC member, attacking Napolitano.
If you need more proof, go back and take a look at the attacks on General Rataczak during his hearings.
August 31st, 2007 at 10:54 am
You didn’t criticize Paton?
What was this:
“I don’t hear him calling for either hiring more case workers or paying them a bit better so that there is not so much turnover of experienced staff.”
Hey Tedski, maybe he’s going to conduct a hearing and investigate to find out what is going on instead of deciding on a course of action.
To allay your other concern:
“I also worry about the motives of his colleagues. Although the tragedies that prompted Paton to go into action here were examples of a lack of intervention by CPS, the argument from many in the Republican caucus for years has been that CPS intervenes too much and breaks up families. Paton’s fellow Republicans may be cheering him on now because it gives them a chance to bash a state bureaucracy, but are they actually interested in fixing things? The motivation here may be to reform CPS, but there is a big danger here of this hearing being yet another excuse for some of Paton’s colleagues to subpoena and berate state employees.”
Perhaps you don’t remember his comments after idiotic Jack Harper spouted off. He’s an honorable man, trying to do the right thing — if you see something during the hearings go for it. Considering his chairmanship on the relevant committee, it is Paton’s responsibility to find out what is going on. Isn’t this what the D’s have been hollering about on the national level regarding Iraq, climate, etc. ?
August 31st, 2007 at 12:28 pm
AS Tedski points out, Paton has done a lot of headline-grabbing, but he hasn’t talked solutions.
CPS needs more staff. Berating the staff for not doing enough checking - but refusing to increase staffing levels or improve salaries to attract more qualified people - is demagoging, plain and simple.
Bruce Ash and the rest of the Republican heirarchy can bluster all they want. The bottom line is that kids are hurting because the state’s elected officials - not the CPS staff - are failing to do their job.
September 3rd, 2007 at 1:28 pm
I think Ted has it completely write, although I want to reserve judgement until I see what if anything these hearings by Paton produce.
What he is more than correct about is the GOP strategy of “starving the beast” and then later attacking it when it is too weak to do what it is supposed to do for society. The answer ends up being more cuts, more regulations, until there is little left.
The fact is that most CPS officials get paid diddly…and those that do the job do it because they have a propensity for helping people. Things can change however when the efforts that these individuals place in their jobs go unrewarded over time, when interest in supporting their family has to come together with the job they do. The pay increases for state workers in this state, like with other government programs pales in comparison to other states…even other conservative states like Georgia.
It is no wonder that things don’t work, Bruce. The people that become our teachers, our social servants, our police, our firemen, are all public employees. For a variety of reasons that would take too long to say now, these jobs need to be public…like the military needs to be. The fact that Bruce, Paton, and the like would rather cut taxes, run deficits, and destroy our physical and human infrastructure for fighting public societal problems is without question. Their solutions are more oversight, more regulation, and less and less resources.
After Katrina and the host of other government debacles (bridge collapses, mining safety disasters, recalled products, etc) caused by a lack of regulation, funds, talent, and commitment, I can’t imagine that anyone will buy the GOP so-called private market/less government recipe…ever again.
September 5th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
Sonoran Sam,
Paton has expressed solutions. Here’s a whole op-ed piece on them dating back to May:
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/related/184725.php
Oh, and this in yesterday’s Citizen:
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/opinion/61778.php
As for Tedski, while you’re busy criticizing Paton for not asking for more money (which he has if you would actually bother to read the paper) and you think CPS isn’t getting enough money you might want to ask your brother and every democrat in the House why they voted “yes” on the CPS budget. Maybe because it added several million more dollars to the budget. While you’re at it ask the governor why she asked for less money in CPS’ budget than CPS asked for. You might wonder why the legislature didn’t ask for even more money for CPS workers. One reason is they are not filling the positions they already have. Money and pay figure into that, but so does the incompetence of the management of the agency in Southern Arizona. It’s a fair question to ask why the southern Arizona region 1. doesn’t fire supervisors for dating abusive dads until they are embarrassed in the media (do you think that might effect morale?), 2. Southern Arizona has the lowest response rates of any region for their hotline and 3. Southern Arizona seems to be having a rash of deaths due to slipshod investigations. CPS’ solution to these issues? More paperwork for their workers and less time investigating actual cases. Those are fair and reasonable questions that all point to one section of the state. That also points directly to poor management. So the solution is to reward this same piss-poor management with higher salaries?
Bottom line: Democrats don’t want to have hearings on why CPS broke the law in letting Pain have custody of his kids. The only reason I can think of is that 1. so many of them make money off of CPS contracts and 2. they are congenitally incapable of criticizing any government entity other than the military or 3. they are afraid any criticism of the agency will spill over to Janet. Their only solution has been more money. I think Paton’s position has been there can be more money, but there has to be more accountability. At the same time Paton is criticized by conservatives because he dares to question the notion that always keeping kids in a home is the best option.
Kralmajales,
CPS’ budget has gone up considerably since the governor’s reforms–not down. So keep up with “starve the beast” excuse all you want. It doesn’t wash. If it is starving the beast then the democrats were complicit in that by voting for the lauded “Senate Budget”. Paton has never advocated to starve anything.
Three kids died. Why shouldn’t we be investigating why this happned?
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