THE TERRIBLE TRUTH ABOUT CPS AND DCS

AUSTIN - A child is four times more likely to die in the Texas foster care system than outside it, Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn said Friday, releasing data on foster care deaths, poisonings, rapes and pregnancies.

"Many children are in more abusive situations now than they were before the state intervened," said Strayhorn, an independent gubernatorial candidate, at a press conference where she was flanked by children's advocates. "Children are being neglected, abused and are dying."

Between fiscal years 2003 and 2005, the number of children in foster care increased 24 percent, she said, but the number of deaths of children in the system rose by 60 percent.

Texas Department of Family and Protective Services data also show 48 foster children died in the year ending Aug. 31, 2005. That compares with 38 children in the previous year and 30 in the year before that, she said.

Strayhorn cited the recent deaths of two boys at the Star Ranch residential treatment facility near Kerrville. A 12-year-old died last December after being restrained by a staffer, and a second child drowned in a creek during a May outing.

Texas Health and Human Services Commission spokeswoman Stephanie Goodman, however, said Strayhorn's overall comparison of child deaths is not fair because many children end up in protective care because of medical neglect.

"I do think comparing foster care kids to the population as a whole is a little misleading," Goodman said. "Foster care kids have more severe health care needs than the general population of children."

Of the foster children who died, abuse and neglect were determined to have caused the deaths of 13 percent in 2005, DFPS records show. That compares with 11 percent of the deaths in 2004 and 7 percent in 2003.

And, some of the children dying in foster care of abuse and neglect have died of injuries sustained before they were removed from relatives, said Patrick Crimmins, a DFPS spokesman.

Strayhorn, who first drew attention to foster care problems in her spring 2004 report "Forgotten Children," also released data her staff has uncovered involving medication poisoning, rape and childbirth in the system.

Her staff pored through 2 million individual Medicaid claims from 2004 in the foster care system and discovered about 100 children had been treated for poisoning from medications.

Another 63 foster children that year received medical treatment for rape occurring while in the foster system, she said, and 142 children gave birth while in foster care.

Strayhorn blasted gubernatorial rival Gov. Rick Perry for ignoring her call two years ago to create a special foster care "crisis management" team and for refusing to order the release of foster care medical records in 2005.

"Gov. Perry's failure to act is unconscionable," she said. "Gov. Perry is hiding the truth, and in hiding the truth, he is jeopardizing our forgotten children's lives."

Goodman said the Health and Human Services Commission, which reports directly to Perry, refused to give Strayhorn individual medical claims in 2005 because the agency thinks she no longer has the legislative authority to see them.

Strayhorn has disputed that claim. Meanwhile, the governor's office declined comment, referring questions to the Perry campaign. It released a statement noting that Perry signed child protection reform legislation in 2005 and that law addresses many of the concerns Strayhorn had raised then.

"With her support evaporating, her poll numbers dropping and her campaign stagnating, Carole Strayhorn seems desperate to change the subject and is sadly not above exploiting child tragedies to do it," campaign spokesman Robert Black said. "What a despicable thing to do."

polly.hughes@chron.com