Federal judge fines Texas child welfare agency $100K per day for foster care failures

A federal judge has ordered Texas health and human services officials to pay $100,000 per day in fines for routinely neglecting investigations into allegations of abuse and neglect by children in the state’s beleaguered foster care system, according to a Monday order.

U.S. District Judge Janis Jack found Texas Health and Human Services Commissioner Cecile E. Young in contempt of her court orders to fix the way the state investigates complaints by children in its care.

It is the third time the state has been held in contempt of court orders since a 2011 lawsuit was filed about foster care conditions in the care of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, the child welfare arm of HHS.

The judge’s decision was prompted by the “continued recalcitrance” to conduct thorough, accurate and timely abuse, neglect, and exploitation investigations by the agency’s Provider Investigations unit, which investigates those allegations, the 427-page decision reads.




https://www.texastribune.org/2024/04/15/texas-foster-care-federal-judge-fine-contempt/