[This shows why it is oh so much easier to criticize than construct. We feel your pain, Will.]

Lawmakers upbraid Youth Commission ombudsman
Letter says field staff, not Austin bureaucracy, needed to help youth in custody
By Mike Ward
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, June 28, 2007
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 Austin office.

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 Odessa, where he was attending a town hall meeting with other Youth Commission officials. Harrell said he had not yet seen the letter.

"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 Austin," the letter continues.

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 University of Texas and University of Houston to establish "a clinical program in which students assist TYC youth in administrative and disciplinary processes" and to set up "multi-disciplinary teams of contract monitors." Prairie View A&M University would collaborate on "project specific research and evaluation," according to the document.

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 West Texas. Several top officials resigned, the agency was put in conservatorship and legislators passed laws to overhaul the agency's operations.

"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."

Gee, complaining about unfunded mandates and not enough staff; sounds like a prosecutor's office in a small county.

And didn't his reckless driving case start out as a DWI?

What's that old saying about the heat and the kitchen?

During the last session, I heard Will Harrell repeatedly testify in favor of really bad legislation that would weaken probation and parole. "Studies show," incarceration does no good he once said, even tho all the evidence is exactly the opposite. Why would a guy who doesn't believe in incarceration, get hired to work in TYC? I wonder who hired him?

And now he is in trouble with Jerry Madden? That's a good laugh.

[This message was edited by Shannon Edmonds on 07-02-07 at .]