Lawmakers upbraid Youth Commission ombudsman
Letter says field staff, not
By Mike
Ward
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
In a harshly worded letter, legislative leaders on
Wednesday ordered the new ombudsman at the scandal-racked Texas Youth
Commission to rewrite his proposed operations plan to put staff in the field
working with troubled young Texans in custody, not sitting in an
The unusual written rebuke to ombudsman Will
Harrell marked the latest in what lawmakers privately characterize as growing
displeasure with Youth Commission officials because of reforms they perceive as
being implemented too slowly or not at all.
"We expect that office to be out there dealing
with kids on the units, and that's what we're telling him in very clear
terms," said House Corrections Committee Chairman Jerry Madden,
R-Richardson, one of the primary authors of legislation overhauling the Youth
Commission after a sex abuse scandal and cover-up was disclosed this spring.
Madden signed the two-page letter with state Sen.
Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, a McAllen Democrat
who co-authored the broad overhaul that created the ombudsman's office to act
as an advocate for youth.
Harrell, who was hired in late May, insisted he is
working as hard and as fast as he can to properly establish the new office. The
proposed operations plan that lawmakers are criticizing is a work in progress,
he said.
"Someone has completely misconstrued what that
document is," he said, reached by phone in
"I have 15 responsibilities in my new office .
. . and they won't be accomplished by having people sitting in the units
talking with the kids. I asked for $3.5 million (for two years), and I got
$600,000 to do this job. And I have no staff until Sept. 1." Although the
overhaul legislation took effect immediately, the new state budget does not
take effect until this fall.
"The Legislature has given me a huge unfunded
mandate," he added. "I'm working right now on assistance from
foundations and through grants."
In the letter, Madden and Hinojosa said the purpose
of the ombudsman's office was clear in the legislation that created it: to
investigate, evaluate and secure the rights of children.
"The Legislature created the ombudsman's
office to immediately address those issues," the letter states. "We
read your proposed plan and want you to know we disagree with the direction you
are taking. . . . The ombudsman's office was to be on the units talking to
youth. . . .
"The priorities in the proposed plan are too
global and are not focused on the immediate needs of youth in the juvenile
system, and would instead create a bureaucracy in the central office in
In his "draft general concept paper"
dated Monday, Harrell proposed monitoring complaints that come into the agency
for "quality assurance," and investigating directly any serious ones,
such as for sexual abuse. It also proposed an assortment of other
administrative measures to ensure that youth are properly cared for and
rehabilitated.
In addition, the document proposes ties to the
The draft proposal is marked "not meant for
general distribution." It was obtained Wednesday by the Austin
American-Statesman under the Texas Public Information Act.
"I'm not finished," Harrell said, noting
he just got an office last week. "I'm still doing outreach to build the
concept."
Asked who is monitoring youth care complaints as
Harrell establishes his office, Madden said he is not sure. Jim Hurley, the
agency's director of public affairs, said complaints are being handled by the
inspector general's office.
"We understand that the office of ombudsman is
a very important part of the reform legislation, and we want it up and running
as fast as is humanly possible," Hurley said. "We hear what the
Legislature is saying."
This is not the first time Harrell, former
executive director of the ACLU of Texas, has found himself in legislators'
crosshairs. After he was hired for the $85,000-a-year job, some lawmakers were
incensed to learn that he was convicted of reckless driving in 2004.
The agency, at lawmakers' urging, had just enacted
a tough policy against hiring anyone with serious misdemeanors and had fired a
number of employees with criminal records.
Operations at the agency erupted into one of the
major issues of the recently completed legislative session after the sex abuse
allegations were disclosed in a Youth Commission lockup in
"If anyone thought the Legislature was going
to pass the reforms and let someone else make sure the changes worked, they
were wrong," Madden said. "We have high expectations, and we're going
to stay on top of this all the way through. We don't want to see the changes
brought down by low performance."
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