More children dying in foster care, comptroller says

Strayhorn says governor's office is blocking her attempts to investigate foster system

The number of children who died in the Texas foster care system increased dramatically in the past two years, from 30 in 2003 to 48 in 2005, state Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn said Friday.

Joined by members of advocacy groups, Strayhorn told reporters that Gov. Rick Perry's administration has stonewalled her attempts to gather data that she needs to complete her investigation.

Carole Keeton Strayhorn State comptroller began examining foster care abuse in 2004.

But Perry's camp said the claims by Strayhorn, who is challenging Perry in the November gubernatorial election, ignore legislation passed in 2005, well into her investigation, that calls for comprehensive reform of Child Protective Services. And state officials cited confidentiality concerns about releasing the data.

"With her support evaporating, her poll numbers dropping and her campaign stagnating, Carole Strayhorn seems desperate to change the subject and is sadly not above exploiting child tragedies to do it," said Robert Black, a Perry re-election campaign spokesman.

Strayhorn said that the increase in foster child deaths outpaces the increase in children in the system. There were about 26,133 children in Texas foster care in 2003 and about 32,474 in 2005, an increase of 24 percent.

The comptroller's findings so far include data showing that in the 2004 budget year (which ended Aug. 31, 2004), 63 foster children received medical treatment for rape that occurred while in the foster care system, 142 children and teens gave birth while in the system, and about 100 received treatment for poisoning caused by medications they were given while in care.

"The state is supposed to be protecting our forgotten children, but in all too many cases these children are taken form one abusive situation and placed in another abusive situation," said Strayhorn, who is running for governor as an independent.

But she said that the Health and Human Services Commission and the governor have blocked her attempts to gather more information about children in foster care. Strayhorn began her investigation in 2004 after she released a report on the foster care system called "Forgotten Children."

Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the state's Health and Human Services Commission, said, "State and federal law prohibits us from releasing client-specific Medicaid data."

Representatives from the Citizens Commission on Human Rights Texas, Justice for Children and Judicial Watch joined Strayhorn in calling on state officials to release the foster care data.

"When the state of Texas assumes the obligation of being a parent, just providing shelter, food and medicine isn't enough, " said Russell Verney, regional director of Judicial Watch, which investigates corruption and abuse of power in state government. "And the only way you and I are going to know what we're doing as parents for these children and what we need to improve that parenting is to sunshine — we need the information."