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Lawmakers were assured that outsourcing management of foster care services would fix the state’s troubled child welfare agency. But the rollout of the new model, set to be completed by 2029, has been complicated by setbacks.

The state legislature passed a law to limit anonymous reports to its child abuse hotline.

The legislation came after The Refuge, a Bastrop foster care facility, hired a caretaker without knowing she had a history of sexual misconduct with children at a state juvenile facility. Coworkers also concealed evidence of the abuse, which further put the foster girls at harm.

House Bill 63 is an attempt to reduce the amount of vindictive or false child abuse reports made to the state, but child advocates say it will deter valid reports, too.

The action came after The Refuge, a Bastrop foster care facility, hired a caretaker without knowing her history of misconduct.

"These things are just so inexcusable," a judge said. "It's hard to understand."

Residential facilities did not refill medications in a timely manner, failed to follow psychiatric orders and, in several instances, violated state guidelines, court monitors documented after site inspections. The lawyer representing the foster kids said it could be “the tip of the iceberg.”

Sharon Fonvielle-Baughman said Texas Department of Family and Protective Services leadership has failed to support the special investigators division, a unit created in 2005 to handle the most high-risk cases.

Caseworkers and foster care providers often get incomplete and inaccurate information about foster kids in their care because of the state child welfare agency’s archaic technology system.

In the state’s final brief to appeal a September injunction that halted the investigation into Texas parents of transgender children, Paxton argued that individual families must provide evidence of harm from the actions of the Department of Family and Protective Services.

Texas legislators are considering increasing the Department of Family and Protective Services’ budget, giving extended relatives more money to care for kids and notifying the subjects of child abuse investigations of their rights.