Governor Napolitano received applause from a group of children’s advocates and others as she entered a conference room at the Capitol on Sept. 30 to announce she is calling the Legislature into special session on an agenda that includes reforms and additional funding for Child Protective Services.

Some of the Legislature’s conservative Republicans, however, are not clapping. They see the session, which will begin Oct. 20, as both premature and having the potential to stretch into a weeks-long political showdown over CPS.

“Our position is we’re not ready to act on CPS,” said House Majority Leader Eddie Farnsworth, R-Dist. 22. “It’s not thwarting anything, it’s just saying that if we come in before we’re prepared to act, we can actually… do more damage to kids in Arizona than if we take the reasonable amount of time that’s necessary to deal with it in the regular session in about 60 days.”

Among her many recommendations for CPS, the governor is asking for a law that redirects the agency’s primary mission to ensure the safety of children, rather than preserving families, and she asks the Legislature for $35.5 million to fund the agency’s current needs, hire additional caseworkers and double the compensation paid to foster parents.

The primary mission of CPS is to “assess the safety of children and to intervene to protect them from harm,” the governor said. “Safety is not even mentioned in the current statutory mission, and that is a problem.”

Ms. Napolitano proposes using money from stepped-up tax collections, federal matching funds from AHCCCS and the State Compensation Fund to pay for increased spending on CPS.

But officials say the state faces a $1 billion deficit in the fiscal year that begins July 1, 2004, and Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Dist. 18, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said, “This session is really about money, and there is no money.”

He also expressed concerns about the proposed CPS mission and spending. “There are a lot of policy issues that need to be worked out,” he said. “I’m concerned that we’re making statements [that] we’ll take the child and ask questions later. Wow. That can destroy families.”

On the other side of the aisle, House Minority Leader John Loredo, D-Dist. 13, predicted the Legislature will pass CPS reform and appropriations legislation, but only after several weeks of partisan wrangling and delay.

“If the end of last session is any indicator, there will be no unity anywhere in terms of party line, at least on the Republican side,” said Mr. Loredo, who predicted the session will run at least three weeks. “If Eddie [Farnsworth] had his way, we’d be studying this [CPS] for the next 20 years. We know everything we need to know about this issue. It’s time for action. I think at the end of the day, there will be a lot of blood on the ground, but I think you’ll see a majority of members here in the House… who are willing to do the right thing and get these bills passed.”

Mr. Loredo also predicted that Ms. Napolitano’s public popularity will work against lawmakers who try to stall CPS legislation.

The governor did not, however, try to reach an agreement on CPS with legislative leaders before formally calling the special session and has been criticized for that. Her critics also have chided her for opposing a recommendation from Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley and some members of her CPS task force to transform CPS into an enforcement agency apart from the Department of Economic Security.

Senate President Ken Bennett, R-Dist. 1, said Oct. 1, “Not even having the language [of CPS legislation] yet and knowing that there were some controversial items in both the governor’s and county attorney’s task forces, reaching consensus on those items is going to be difficult.” He added, however, “I think there’s an excellent chance we’ll pass a lot of items.”

It’s Not About An ‘Organizational Chart,’ Governor Says

At her announcement of the special session, the governor defended her decision not to separate CPS from DES.

“I’m respectful of it [the recommendation to split off CPS as a separate agency] because there are arguments in its favor,” Ms. Napolitano said. But, she said, such a move would cost $6 million to $8 million and she feels CPS should remain under DES because DES provides services to CPS children and families.

“In my judgment, this is not about rearranging boxes on an organizational chart,” the governor said

Mr. Farnsworth said, “There is no consensus on what needs to be done. The governor’s own task force was split 50-50 on what needs to be done. We’re at the point now where money isn’t going to solve the problem.”

Ms. Napolitano said she decided to announce her recommendations for CPS before consulting with the legislative leaders because “I thought… let’s lay out the plan. Let’s give everybody several weeks notice… to work out the actual details and the actual legislative language together.”

Initial drafting of CPS bills was scheduled to begin Oct. 3.

“The Legislature has a big role to play in the protection of our children,” Ms. Napolitano said. But, “The Legislature has been talking about CPS for about 20 years, and nothing has ever moved or happened. It’s time to act.”

The governor said she put her CPS plan into special session because she was worried that it would “get lost” in the regular session, which begins Jan. 12, 2004. A special session, she said, will “shine the light of day on CPS.”

Mr. Bennett said he doesn’t think the special session is necessary, but he agreed with the governor’s prediction that it will “bring heightened awareness” of CPS problems.

“Since I have been governor, we have seen too many terrible headlines of children dying or enduring horrible abuse,” Ms. Napolitano said at her press conference announcing the special session. “They’ve been caged, they’ve been starved, they’ve been shamefully neglected. They have been pulled into prostitution [and] they’ve even been murdered by their parents.”

A ‘Mini’ Regular Session

Mr. Bennett agreed with Mr. Loredo about the potential for a knock-down-drag-out special session, saying it “could be very long and protracted. It’s beginning to look like a mini-regular session” [with six items in the call]. “I think there’s a general frustration [among GOP legislative leaders] there hasn’t been more cooperation on developing a plan with the Legislature, but we’ll do everything we have to do to do that now.”

Mr. Bennett and Mr. Farnsworth are cochairmen of the Joint Select Committee on CPS, which received the governor’s CPS plan at a meeting Oct. 1.

“The special session will cause us to rethink some of our timetables to provide input for the special session and do what we can between now and then,” Mr. Bennett told the committee, but added, “All the special sessions or all the regular sessions in the world aren’t going to correct all the things that need to be addressed.”

Mr. Farnsworth said in an interview that CPS should be considered in the next regular session of the Legislature, not in a special session. “I think that’s the view of many of the legislators,” he said. “We’re talking about the power to destroy families if this is not done properly. The loyal opposition, if you want to call it that, is going to say, ‘Well, in 60 days, we’re still going to have kids th
at are going to die.’ The reality is that people are going to abuse their children no matter what we do.”

Sen. Slade Mead, R-Dist. 20, said he favors the special session in light of news reports that in the last five years, 31 children who had been referred to CPS have died.

“There are kids out there who are dying. If we can fix this problem in October and save one kid, I’m glad we went into special session,” Mr. Mead said.

Mr. Mead praised new DES director David Berns and the governor.

“Berns has his act together,” the senator said. “I feel very confident about him. The governor has figured out what she wants. All the infighting is going to be among ourselves, at this point.”

Mr. Berns received national acclaim for turning around the child welfare system in Colorado Springs, Colo. “This is something we can do and will do” in Arizona, he told Arizona Capitol Times.

42-Point Plan

Ms. Napolitano said her 42-point CPS plan came from eight months of study, public hearings and advice from 260 people, including legislators. She said there is a need to hire 235 additional personnel for the agency, and if the Legislature does not provide the funding she requested, 4,100 cases of child abuse or neglect will go uninvestigated.

The plan calls for CPS and law enforcement to conduct joint investigations and for those investigators to be located in the same office. It also requests that county attorneys review all cases referred for prosecution and respond within 90 days.

The governor said the court system has shut out people with “legitimate interests” in child abuse and neglect cases, and she called for changes in state confidentiality laws and expansion into rural counties of a Maricopa County pilot program that opens up a limited number of child abuse court cases to the public.

Ms. Napolitano also said alcohol and drug abuse by parents should be considered in child abuse cases, adding that parents who are instructed to participate in child abuse education programs but refuse to do so should be ordered to do so by the courts.

“CPS is many children’s only hope of escape from lives of abuse and neglect, but as it stands today, CPS cannot serve all the children it must,” the governor said. “We must fix our child welfare system, and we must do it now.

“Now,” the governor continued, “we would be fooling ourselves to suggest that it is possible to eliminate child abuse and neglect. The plain fact of it is that some people should not be parents.” —

Reporter Grant Smith contributed to this report.