TYC Scandal: It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better

It’s been nearly a month since the news of sexual abuse at the Texas Youth Commission hit the front pages of Texas’ major daily newspapers (and, if you believe what you read, came into Governor Perry’s personal orbit) yet the Governor, hasn’t taken any real and meaningful steps toward reforms that would clean up the mess. And, some things in play now could make the situation worse.

Sure, a “special master” (of dubious constitutional authority, no doubt) has been appointed, the TYC board is gone, and a new Acting Executive Director is in place, but that’s about it.

State Sen. John Whitmire (D-Houston) summed up the impass this way:

“We’re not seeing the radical changes we need,” state Sen. John Whitmire told acting youth commission director Ed Owens during a hearing on the ongoing sex-abuse scandal at the agency. “It’s time to act, heads to roll.”

While some of the heads that really need to roll are probably in a suite of offices at 1100 San Jacinto in Austin and may never actually roll, it is, indeed, past time to act.
Perry’s newly appointed Acting ED for the Commission is already failing to do his job:

But under questioning before the special House-Senate joint committee, Owens acknowledged that he has yet to implement plans to upgrade the training of juvenile correctional officers, develop a uniform process for dealing with grievances from inmates and their families and for segregating nonviolent offenders from the violent ones.

Whitmire and other members of the panel appeared incensed to learn about the stalled process of installing video surveillance cameras in strategic location at youth commission facilities.

Owens said he is ready to move forward with the camera installation, but his agency lacks the funds to purchase the equipment. He has notified the Gov. Rick Perry’s office of the need and has requested the $5.6 million for the cameras in an emergency appropriations request from lawmakers.

Of course, emergency appropriations for state agencies won’t be on the radar for weeks. Once again, the big failure here is the Governor’s office. Perry could have appropriated the money from his criminal justice projects fund.
Again, Whitemire comes up with the right word to describe the situation:

“It’s nuts to me that you’ve made it known to the governor’s office that you need money for cameras … and no one has provided the resources,” Whitmire said.

It’s nuts to you, Senator Whitmire, and nuts to the average person. I’m sure, however, that Governor Perry will claim he was unaware of the request until he saw it in this morning’s Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Either that, or Alfonso Royal deleted it because it was clogging up his inbox.

And, in spite of the fact that young people have been raped in state facilities, Perry says it is “premature” to determine what should be funded.

“Premature?” Premature is saying it’s too early to appropriate $2 billion dollars for a lake that’s scheduled to be built in 2015. Appropriating a few hundred thousand for cameras to aide in stopping gross mismanagement that has already happened isn’t premature.

And, I’m not really sure if the folks at the Texas Youth Commission even know who is in charge. Kimbrough claims:

“I ain’t got no statutory anything,” he said. “The governor asked me to help and I’m helping.”

“I ain’t got no statutory anything?” That’s sure to be a morale-booster within the halls of the Texas Youth Commission. And, it’s part of the reason the House Corrections Committee is trying to force Perry to dump his personal Bullmastiff from the project and instead appoint a conservator:

Earlier, Madden’s committee voted overwhelmingly to have Perry appoint a permanent conservator to TYC, a move that could end Kimbrough’s role. The vote was 5-1, with Madden himself objecting.

Well, that coupled with this:

Dunnam argued Monday that Kimbrough’s appointment presented a conflict of interest because he has worked both for the attorney general’s office and the governor’s office — two branches that have come under scrutiny for apparently not moving swiftly when confronted with information about sex abuse allegations.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Someone hand Minority Leader Dunnam a cookie—nay, a whole freakin’ crate of Chips A’Hoy—because he is one of the few with the guts to say what the world is thinking and the media isn’t printing (unless, of course, it’s in a quote).

This “conflict of interest” is real. Perry is essentially in charge of trying to fix a cover-up that two of his former employers (or, at least, their offices) may have deliberately (or, at minimum, through gross incompetence) helped facilitate. Fox, meet henhouse.

Of course, Perry’s office tries to blame the fact that nothing is happening on anyone but Kimbrough and Owens:

“At some point we have to move beyond a pointless debate about semantics and titles and get focused on a debate about how to rebuild TYC,” Royer said.

I’m sorry, but it seems to me that a serious constitutional issue like, say, the authority of the governor to actually do something, just might be a little more important to an anti-activist-judge, strict constructionist administration.

And, there is more. Much more. And, it gets worse.

The main point person in the governor’s office for the rehabilitation of the Texas Youth Commission is none other than Alfonso “Delete After Seven Days” Royal:

Told by Owens that his contact in the governor’s office is Alfonso Royal, a budget and policy analyst, Whitmire and others on the committee urged Owens to seek higher counsel.

“This is the most serious situation in state government,” Whitmire told Owens. “You’d better push the panic button and get the urgency in the governor’s office.”

Humm. I think the panic button was broken when wealthy Republicans pushed it too much to complain about property taxes being too high.

Seriously, though, how egregious is this? Putting Royal as the main point of contact on this one would be like putting Richard Nixon in charge of reconstructing the 18 1/2 minute gap on the Watergate tapes.

Wasn’t there a capitol janitor who might be trusted with this responsibility? Nothing could be worse than Royal.

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