Jan. 10, 2005

Gov. Perry Declares APS, CPS Reform and Education Emergency Legislation

Designation Will Allow Lawmakers to Quickly Begin Hearings on Issues

AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry today designated reform of Adult Protective Services (APS) and Child Protective Services (CPS) and education legislation as emergency items for the 2005 legislative session. The designation will allow lawmakers to begin almost immediate hearings on those items.

Speaking to a meeting of the state’s newspaper editorial writers and Associated Press members, the governor said he designated APS and CPS as emergency items because, “There is no greater priority than protecting those who cannot help themselves, those who are in the dawn of their lives or the twilight of their years who are at risk of abuse, neglect and manipulation.”

Education reform, he added, represents “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve education and improve young lives.”

Last week Perry called for a massive restructuring of CPS that not only will invest $329 million to fix the beleaguered agency but more importantly address how the money is spent. The recommendation is based on thorough review of the agency that the governor ordered after problems came to light.

“These CPS reforms will drop investigator caseloads by 40 percent, increase the time investigators spend with children and families by 39 percent and reduce time spent on paperwork by 58 percent,” Perry said. “And most importantly, these reforms provide a new framework to better protect vulnerable Texans from abuse and neglect and to help them pick up the pieces of their lives.”

As part APS reforms already announced, the Health and Human Services Commission has authorized 50 new caseworkers for the current biennium and proposes hiring 144 additional caseworkers by fiscal year 2007, a move that will lower caseloads by 20 percent.

The Commission also will move guardianship services to the Department of Aging and Disability Services, and Perry’s office has identified $1.5 million in Workforce Investment Act funds to greatly expand caseworker training.

“We will reform our safety net and make it work first and foremost for the Texans it must protect and secondly for the taxpayers who are its essential foundation,” Perry said.

In addressing education reform as an emergency legislative issue, Perry said reducing property taxes will be an important part of the debate, as will improving Texas schools.

“My goal is to provide a significant property tax cut that Texans can feel, take to the bank, and count on in the future and not just for one year,” Perry said. “And just as importantly, any new business tax enacted to lower property taxes must not harm the engine of growth, Texas jobs.”

Perry added that while reducing property taxes is important, there is no greater priority than providing lasting reform to public education.

“We must provide a great education for every child, regardless of where they come from, the sound of their last name or the heritage of their family,” he said.

“I believe we must focus reform where it is needed most – in schools where we have large numbers of economically disadvantaged students, where graduation rates are low and where too few children graduate prepared for college and success in life.”

As part of the education reforms, Perry said he wants to provide strong salary incentives for our best teachers. Six years ago, as lieutenant governor, Perry helped pass a $3,000 across-the-board pay raise for teachers, the largest pay raise in state history. Teachers who were employed in 1999 and are still teaching today are making, on average, $9,000 a year more today than they were six years ago.

“The trend toward higher compensation for teachers is a good one,” Perry said. “But when you reward excellence the same as mediocrity, you make mediocrity its own incentive.”

Perry said he is not ruling out across-the-board pay increases for teachers, but he also wants to provide new incentives for teaching excellence.

Among other education reforms Perry said he wants to see are incentives for student achievement on the TAKS test, successful schools that get students to take our hardest curriculum and pass end-of-course exams that demonstrate college readiness.

“Not only must we provide incentives for success, we cannot allow schools that fail our poorest children year after year to continue to do so without real consequences,” Perry said.

The initial and immediate response to troubled schools, he added, must be to provide expert help.

“But at the end of the day, if failing schools refuse to change, there must be real consequences and real reforms that will reassure parents and students,” Perry said.

The governor also said that the legislature should revisit the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in 2005.

“In better economic times, there is growing support for offering more benefits to CHIP families,” Perry said. “But that does not mean the members of this Legislature should retreat on eligibility rules.”

Perry noted that last year he asked Health and Human Services Commissioner Albert Hawkins to look at restoring dental and eye care as incentives to get more eligible children enrolled.

“Those who argue for a 12-month re-enrollment period need to explain why an ineligible family found on the rolls should receive subsidized health insurance for six more months when they don’t qualify,” he said.

Perry reminded the audience that of the children who are no longer on CHIP, 31 percent are now covered by Medicaid. In fact, today, one-third of all Texas children are covered by either Medicaid or CHIP – more than double the number of young Texans on government-sponsored health care since 1999.

“We will carefully review the CHIP benefits package to make sure we have a program that meets the needs of working families and that taxpayers can afford,” Perry said.

Regardless of revenue estimates for the upcoming two-year budget cycle, Perry said he believes that “in a state that budgets more than $120 billion a biennium and that is among the ten largest economies in the world, we can and we will find a way to fund essential priorities.”