"Stupid is as stupid does."
Posted on 06/04/2008 4:25:34 PM PDT by FreeInWV
Removing 460 children from a polygamist sect compound and then reuniting them with their families will cost Texas $7 million, according to the state Department of Family and Protective Services.
The children were ordered returned to their families this week after the Texas Supreme Court found that the state did not have enough evidence to show that abuse was happening at the Yearning for Zion ranch near Eldorado.
Custody Battle Over Sect ChildrenMike Stone, ReutersA woman and two children from a polygamist sect in Eldorado, Texas, prepare to return home Tuesday after sect children were ordered reunited with their families. The order followed a Texas Supreme Court ruling that authorities had no grounds to remove 460 children from the sect.
The price tag includes costs from fighting a court battle to retain custody of the children, attempting to determine their parentage through DNA testing and reuniting the children with their parents.
The $7 million does not include more than $500,000 in estimated costs incurred by local governments whose law enforcement agencies were involved in the April 3 ranch raid, according to a budgetary presentation given to Texas lawmakers last month.
The raid was prompted by an anonymous caller who claimed that men at the ranch were involved in sexual relationships with young girls.
The ranch is owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a Mormon offshoot that practices polygamy. Child welfare officials said they found a "pervasive pattern" of sexual abuse through forced marriages between underage girls and older men. FLDS members have denied that any sexual abuse occurred and say they are being persecuted because of their religion.
Albert Hawkins, executive commissioner of Texas Health and Human Services, told the state Senate Finance Committee that as of May 15, the state had spent more than $5.2 million to provide food, shelter and counseling to the FLDS children. The bulk of those costs included employee overtime and transportation, Hawkins said.
Meanwhile, a state district judge told senators that legal costs in the case had topped $2.2 million. Most of that burden falls on Tom Green County, where the district court hearings were taking place, and Schleicher County, where the ranch is located, said Judge Ben Woodward, according to a Senate statement.
Neither county, Woodward said, has the money to cover the legal costs. "We're at a point now where we're going to start limping along pretty badly," he said.
The court costs estimate, presented to the Senate on May 20, does not appear to reflect the cost of an appeal handled by the Texas 3rd District Court of Appeals. The appeals court overturned the district court's ruling that the children should remain in state custody.
For comparison, $7 million would pay for 137 police officers in the city of Mesquite, Texas, at a salary of $51,060, according to a figure from a job posting. It would also pay for 180 new teachers at the average statewide salary of $38,857 given by the Texas State Board for Educator Certification and would more than double resources available for a state program aimed at children of incarcerated parents, according to the state's budget for fiscal 2008-09. In that budget, the program receives $5 million.
Texas Child Protective Services referred all questions about the costs of the operation to the state's Health and Human Services department. In response to the Texas Supreme Court ruling last week, CPS said in a statement that it "has one purpose in this case: to protect the children. Our goal is to reunite families whenever we can do so and make sure the children will be safe."
The removal of the children was thought to be the largest child protection case in the nation's history. If they had remained in state custody, Hawkins told lawmakers, the estimated monthly cost for their care would have been $1.3 million.
District Judge Barbara Walther, who decided after a chaotic hearing last month that the state would retain custody of the children, also ordered DNA testing to identify parents and children, as child protection officials said they were thwarted by FLDS members who gave them conflicting or misleading information about their names, ages and familial ties.
Those DNA test results, obtained by a North Carolina lab, were beginning to come in Tuesday, the Child Support Division of the Texas Attorney General's Office said. The lab was starting to deliver reports to the court, the office said, and CPS should have them by the end of the week.
Some 599 DNA samples were taken, the office said. Of those, only 36 were of adult males. Now that the children are being returned, CPS will decide how to use the results in its continuing case involving its oversight of the FLDS.
State Sen. Steve Ogden told officials during the hearing that the final costs would probably be more than the estimated figures presented.
"The cost of this operation is going to be a lot more than is on this sheet of paper," he said. "It doesn't reflect what is going on now, and there are huge legal costs out there that we haven't even discussed yet."
He asked officials to rework their analyses of future costs so the state isn't caught by surprise when the next legislative session begins in January.
However, all that is largely a moot point now, as FLDS children were allowed to reunite with their families beginning Monday. Though the state Supreme Court upheld the ruling that the state had no right to seize the 460 children, the justices said that court oversight of the FLDS could be accomplished through other means.
Also during the hearing, state Sen. Bob Duell questioned whether Texas could force FLDS adults to bear some of the costs. However, given the subsequent court decisions, it appears unlikely the FLDS could be forced to bear any financial responsibility.
To those familiar with FLDS history, the raid called to mind a 1953 mass arrest in the hamlet of Short Creek on the Utah-Arizona state line. More than 400 FLDS members were arrested and more than 200 children taken into foster care. However, news photographs of wailing mothers and children won public sympathy, and the raid backfired on then-Arizona Gov. Howard Pyle, who ordered it. In the next election, Pyle was voted out of office.
"For 50 years, [the FLDS] used the Short Creek raid as [a] reason to keep their people secretive and isolated," Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff told the Los Angeles Times in a story Saturday. "We said that was not going to happen again. Well, it has happened again."
Eldorado residents, meanwhile, expressed frustration with the outcome of the raid and the court's finding that the state had no right to remove the children.
"I said from the word go, if there's sex with underage girls, nail their butt," Curtis Griffin, owner of the local fuel depot, told the Los Angeles Times. "But nail the right people. We're going to wind up with a $30 million bill here in this little county because these people didn't have their ducks in a row."
Er, excluding the lawsuit payouts, yet to come.
We are looking at underaged brides living in giant mansions with their trial attorneys....
Thank god it is only tax payers money...
“We’re going to wind up with a $30 million bill here in this little county because these people didn’t have their ducks in a row.”
Half of every graduating class graduates at the bottom.
These people are in government and costing those that worked hard to graduate and earn a good living a lot of money.
"Stupid is as stupid does."
460 X $1,000,000 = $460,000,000 plus punitive damages.
I can only hope that the damages and pain and suffering from the forthcoming lawsuit against CPS is $70 million or $700 million. Spare no effort. NOW is the time to put the CPS Nazis in their place. Let every CPS department, in every state and county, quake in their boots.
Keeping the over 18 mothers in custody when they proved they were legal adults followed by trying to terminate the mothers’ rights while in the hospital - that’s worth 50 million there. IMHO.
After the lawsuits, that bill will be a lot bigger.
Taking the boys and young girls based on their parents "beliefs" should cost them another $400 mil.
I hope there are some good lawyers out there drooling over the state of Texas.
(BTW, I *am* a Texan and it's my taxes which will help foot this bill. I'll happily pay to set a precedent.)
I’m Texan, too. What freaked me out about this case was the false call that generated it - and still no arrest of the nut - AND when they had no solid stacks of pregnant teenagers, they still kept grown women in prison.
Trying to take newborns of women kept in custody - makes me glad we (theoretically) have a second amendment.
Post #9 - ditto
Remember CPS making that big announcement about the boys having massive broken bones? Turned out to be a lie, too.
Here is an unprofessional video by a Texan concerned about the FLDS children dumped in a particular foster care facility in Liverpool TX. If you can have a little patience, you will be SHOCKED at some of the things this man discovered - damning evidence about the condition of this foster care place:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KheY7IP0Y7s&feature=related
Bill O’Reilly was at it again on tonight’s show. “Sex slaves”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6hgpSoUZCs&feature=related
Some people are wondering why Baptists were so much involved in this raid, for one thing sending their church buses in to haul innocent children away at gunpoint:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN_QG1UqHLs
Yeah, that’s about par for foster care.
Bill is just a narcissistic defensive populace with a lot of personality hangups and overinflated sense of self importance. Makes for good tv I guess.
I meant to say above “populist” not populace.
Interesting
For ever I have read posts that only 6 or 8 men showed up for DNA now its 36
one more fib or is it just stretching the truth by cps to help their claim
The thought that there is a government agency that can declare you underage and having no rights when they know you are an adult that scares me.
This should cost the state $$
This should cost the individuals responsible say 5-20 with no time off for good behavior.
I take it you don’t like Bill O’Reilly, either. Ha!
Wait until the warrant begins to receive scrutiny in court. The costs to the state will expand exponentially.
It seems CPS rounded up some FLDS young women by eye-balling them and discussing amongst themselves which ones looked like teenagers. “You go stand over there!” “But I’m 22, can I please show you my driver’s license?” “Shut up and go stand over there where I told you to stand!”
There were several adult women herded like cattle, suspected of being underage as if that is a crime. Law enforcement backed those CPS goons up. What a creepy and frightening experience.
The woman who gave birth with CPS goons in the room watching and she was scared to death they were going to snatch her newborn baby; all the while that woman was an adult! Good grief!
It is a monstrous evil, how they stripped the FLDS of constitutional and human rights.
That's because the filthy cultists are taught to lie.. among other things.
It is a monstrous evil, how they stripped the FLDS of constitutional and human rights.
It is one we must stop or we will lose all we have in the way of freedom and liberty.
If they are allowed to get away with this will not be long till other adults can be kept for no good reason till no one will have liberty.
I am neither LDS nor Baptist. Could you explain to me why the LDS hate (fear?) the Baptists so much? Thank you.
Some of those adult males who gave DNA samples did not live at YFZ, like Dan Barlow. He was the former mayor of Colorado City before he was kicked out. His wife, now Sarah Barlow Draper, was reassigned to another man. She and Dan’s children moved with their new father to Texas.
Never seen a break down of on or off ranch.
All I have ever seen is just 6-8 flds men.
You are talking about the CPS, aren't you?
The majority of the anti Mormon Cabal members here on FR are Baptists or Born Againers. If you would like, I can post a list of the cabal members and about 10,000 anti Mormon posts. Just go look at Colorcountry's posting history, she is virulently anti Mormon and a Baptist.
They were under no legal obligation to say anything at all.
L
heh.
Does anyone else find it ironic that the CPS is turning out to be a bunch of liars, child abusers and even adult abusers?
Honestly, no. It was sort of expected.
I am surprised that Judge Walther abandoned all pretense of nuetrality before the adversarial hearings even began.
It will be interesting to see how the TX bar handles that.
“Abuse of Discretion”, leveled against a Judge, is pretty darn serious.
“District Judge Barbara Walther, who decided after a chaotic hearing last month that the state would retain custody of the children, also ordered DNA testing to identify parents and children, as child protection officials said they were thwarted by FLDS members who gave them conflicting or misleading information about their names, ages and familial ties. “
Can anybody point me to the order to collect DNA?
“That’s because the filthy cultists are taught to lie.. among other things.”
Nearly all of the disputed minors have been proven to be adults. When 28 year olds with birth certificates & drivers licenses are declared disputed minors and held against their will for over a month, we know who the liars are.
I am shocked about that. Shocked, I tell you!
saracasm/off
I think that she will retire. The retirement package for Judges is very nice.
I would love to see charges brought against the Judge and the CPS, but I know how the system works. If anything, the CPS will get a bigger budget next year, so that they can prevent something like this from ever occurring again.
Some of those were probably teenage boys whose exact ages were not known when the samples were taken. Plus a handful who turned 18 while in foster care. I know at least 2 boys turned 18 while in foster care, and last I read, they’d both elected to stay in state care even after being told they were free to leave since they’d become adults (I assume they are no longer in state care, now that all the children in foster homes have left).
The number 8 came from the people collecting the DNA. That was the number of men who showed up within the first week or so. That was not the purported number who showed up by the time they quit taking sammples. I had never seen the final number before.
36 means there were 50 or so who didn’t show up for DNA testing. Now I wonder why that is.
Lets not forget that colorcountry is/was Mormon.
Its polite to ping the freeper when you speak of them.
I am not a Baptist, although I have nothing against Baptist.
Are you lying for the Lord again, Legrande? I don’t thing you have a modicum of truthfulness in you, athiest. And why would you?
Well at least the kids weren’t waterboarded, I guess.
Yeah I have seen where colorcountry has claimed to be a Mormon when it suits her purposes. I have also seen her post pictures of her Baptist Grandkids and talk about attending a Baptist Church.
Nah, you just post pictures of your Baptist Grandkids and attend a Baptist Church. You have also claimed to be a Mormon too, I guess your religion depends on which day of the week it is.
Are you lying for the Lord again, Legrande? I don’t thing you have a modicum of truthfulness in you, athiest. And why would you?
Are you denying attending a Baptist Church? LOL
LOL. Two of my grandkids are Mormon. One has no religion, and two are Catholic. and YES I am denying that I attend a Baptist Church. Never have I said that I am a Baptist, however I have attended services in a Baptist Church, I have attended Vigil at a Catholic Church, I have attended services at an Assembly of God Church, and several different Non-Denominational Churches.
You are either lying about me, or mistaken. Since you freely whisper behind my back, I'll let the reader make the decision as to your possible motivation.
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