The Texas Observer

A disciplinary report confirming misconduct by former West Texas State School Assistant Superintendent Ray Brookins was altered with the apparent approval of Texas Youth Commission Inspector General Ray Worsham shortly after Brookins was given a promotion, documents obtained by the Observer show. Worsham was suspended with pay last week after allegations surfaced that he may have been responsible for altering a key internal review of the agency’s handling of the crisis at Pyote. New, unreleased documents show that Worsham may have been covering for Brookins much earlier. See our home page for the full story.

The special joint committee named by the house and senate leadership to oversee reforms of the Texas Youth Commission in the wake of the Pyote scandal (reported first in The Texas Observer) met for the first time this afternoon. Much of the four hour hearing was devoted to housekeeping issues, including who among the team assigned by the governor’s office to investigate and overhaul the agency–which included the governor’s special master Jay Kimbrough, John Keel of the state auditor’s office, Ed Owens, the new executive director, and Don Clemmer of the attorney general’s office–would handle which duties. Senator Chris Harris raked Clemmer over the coals for fifteen minutes for his agency’s failure to intervene sooner in the crisis at Pyote. The committee was likewise unimpressed with Clemmer’s prediction that he could have the two alleged perps at Pyote indicted within four or five months. Chairman Whitmire urged him to expedite it however he could.

Texas Ranger Brian Burzynski stole the show with his account of his efforts on behalf of the victims at Pyote. Burzynski, who finished his investigation in the spring of 2005, was thwarted at every turn by Ward County district attorney Randy Reynolds, who refused to move on the case until January of this year, prompting Senator Royce West to ask if there was any process for impeaching district attorneys in the state of Texas. Burzynski, who choked up a bit when he recounted his promise to the victims he interviewed that he would not let them down, received a standing ovation from the committee members and much of the gallery at the end of his testimony. Clearly, the Rangers will not be taking the hit–and rightly so–for the fact that not a soul has yet been arrested in what is emerging as one of the worst scandals in recent memory.

The current board of TYC took a hit however, when the committee, after hearing an hour’s worth of testimony from board members, wrapped up the hearing with a vote of no confidence in the board. It was a symbolic swipe at the governor, who has yet to cave in to demands that the board be replaced by an outside conservator. His man Jay Kimbrough, however, all but promised that mass firings were imminent at the agency. Kimbrough was relentlessly upbeat about the work that was being done thus far (”an excellent job by everybody” he kept saying, which might fairly be translated as “no conservator needed”), which has included establishing hotlines for youth and staff to call to report abuse, sending peace officers out to the various TYC facilities, and surveying staff and inmates at selected facilities.

Politics was in the air this afternoon as attempts were made to nail down when the governor knew of the abuse at Pyote, when Burzinski’s unreleased report made it to the capitol, and various other lines of intrigue. Democratic Caucus leader Rep. Jim Dunnam issued a press release shortly after the hearing ended calling on the governor once again to wipe out the board. The gov’s office responded with its own press release, which read in part: “the Governor believes that every member of the TYC board must be willing to devote their full time and attention to correcting the problems at the youth commission. Any member who is not willing to do that should resign immediately.”

After hours of negotiation this afternoon, Dewhurst and Craddick just issued a Press release announcing the creation of a joint select committee on TYC, chaired by Senator Whitmire and Rep. Jerry Madden, to examine allegations of sex abuse at the agency and recommend reforms. Simultaneously, the release says, the Legislative Audit Committee voted unanimously to recommend that the Governor appoint a conservatorship. No word from Perry yet.

More front page reporting this morning on the TYC sex abuse scandal we broke on our website on February 17 (and which appeared in the Feb. 23 print version of TO.) As we predicted in this space last week, the Dallas Morning News broke the story this morning of another two-year old sex abuse incident that was never prosecuted or reported on in the press, this one at the Ron Jackson State School in the central Texas town of Brownwood.

 The Statesman also ran a front page story, with an “exclusive” report about evidence that an internal agency review had been doctored to protect agency brass. Observer readers will recall that we already reported on this in our first story (”Hidden in Plain Sight”), published two weeks ago. Statesman reporter Mike Ward got a copy of an early, unofficial draft of the agency review, which contained a particularly damning account from an administrator named Melody Vidaurri. That account, Ward reported, was missing from the official, edited version of the review.

 It certainly was, and that’s not all. Here’s what we reported on February 17:

In fact, certain sections of the review, written by a TYC inspector from North Texas, seemed crafted to deflect blame from administrators in Austin. One particularly dubious assertion stands out: “No report of Mr. Brookins frequent, private, visits with youth after hours was ever directly made [to Austin staff].” This statement seems to discount communications documented earlier in the report, such as caseworker Billy Hollis’ August 2004 e-mail to Executive Director Harris, and human resource administrator Kristin Pottenger’s November 2004 e-mail to Austin. Curiously, the review lacks an account of an interview conducted by the inspector that seems particularly damaging to Austin staff. According to a summary of the interview obtained by the Observer, security coordinator Melody Vidaurri, who accompanied Barnard on her visit to the facility in February 2005, told the inspector that “numerous students and staff reported concerns about Ray Brookins’ conduct with students, including rumors of him engaging in sexual behavior with students.” Vidaurri reported that she shared this information with Barnard as they were driving to the airport on their way back to Austin. “According to Ms. Vidaurri,” the summary states, “Ms. Barnard informed her that these allegations had already been investigated and there was nothing to it.”

Why was it so easy for Vidaurri to collect these reports, unsubstantiated though they may have been, on this visit in February 2005, when Barnard had been able to discover nothing during her trip the previous fall? And why was Vidaurri’s claim to have informed Barnard of her concerns not included in the final report? Tim Savoy, the public information officer for TYC, said Vidaurri’s comments were not included because there was no “independent substantiation” that the conversation with Barnard took place.

Meanwhile, the Statesman reported this afternoon, Senate leaders have yet to convince the House to go along with their recommendation for conservatorship for the agency. Waco Democrat Jim Dunnam blamed House leadership, whom he suggested were trying to protect Governor Perry, who remains opposed to conservatorship. Houston Democrat Sylvester Turner warned TYC officials not to destroy documents and their were numerous calls for the Texas Rangers to investigate other state schools. This story has now consumed the lege for a week and shows no signs of slowing.

Governor Perry and the Senate are squaring off today over whether or not the Texas Youth Commission should be placed in conservatorship in the wake of the sex abuse scandal and coverup at the West Texas State School in Pyote. As we reported last night, the Senate voted unanimously to move the agency toward conservatorship, which means an outside convservator would be appointed to oversee the agency while the board and most of the top leadership are replaced. The governor, however, seems to feel that replacing the board chair will be enough, now that the executive director has resigned. The House is now considering the Senate’s proposal and word is that nothing will happen on it today.

The Houston Chronicle, meanwhile, is pumping up the pressure on Perry, noting in this morning’s edition that Perry’s office knew about the Rangers investigation since February of 2005. According to spokesman Ted Royer, however, the gov’s office never got a follow-up report, so didn’t know how bad the allegations were or how poorly the agency dealt with the problem.

Or did they? In June of 2005, an administrative review of the agency’s handling of the crisis at Pyote was done by a TYC inspector named Tish Elliott-Wilkins. That review, obtained by the Observer, was the basis for much of our original report breaking the story on February 16. We’re hearing that the report was passed around to legislative leadership in the summer of 2005. Anybody who read that report would be hard-pressed to say they didn’t know just how bad the situation was at TYC.

The question then: Did Perry’s office get a copy? We’re on it.

Administrators for the troubled Texas Youth Commission are in front of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee at this hour attempting to explain what went wrong at the West Texas State School in Pyote, where a hushed up sex abuse scandal has finally broken open, as we reported ten days ago.

 Executive director Dwight Harris resigned in the wake of the scandal last Friday, so the job of fielding the panel’s questions fell to long-time general counsel and acting executive director Neil Nichols. Things got off to a rough start when Chairman John Whitmire asked Nichols who was present from the agency and quickly discovered that not a single board member had come to the hearing. “I find it astounding with the condition of your agency and the seriousness of these allegations that you don’t have single board member here,” Whitmire said, singling out board chair Pete Alfaro by name.

 Things went downhill from there. Whitmire pulled agency spokesman Tim Savoy up to the mike and demanded to know who authored the glowing review of outgoing director Harris’ career in his resignation press release. “Right in the middle of a storm I don’t think we need state employees putting out propaganda on what a fine job this agency is doing,” he said.

 Senator Juan Hinojosa laid out his bill, SB 103, which he described as just the beginning of an effort to reform the agency (see this description of the bill on Grits for Breakfast). Hinojosa then gave the floor back to Whitmire, who did the heavy lifting on the interrogation of Nichols.

 Whitmire demanded to know why Chip Harrison, the superintendent at Pyote when the alleged sex abuse occurred, had not been fired, despite the fact that numerous staff members had tried to warn him about the two alleged perpetrators. “How in the world do you tell this panel that this person is still with the agency?” When Nichols admitted that Harrison had actually been promoted, and was now supervising three or four institutions like Pyote, their was an audible gasp and collective head shaking from the packed gallery, which included some parents of TYC inmates.

Whitmire all but demanded that Harrison be fired sometime this afternoon. “Why, why would you leave somebody like that in a position of responsibility at the agency?” he said. “That’s totally unacceptable and indicates to me that you still have a broken system.”

 “I’m about to call for changes, or a restructuring, or possibly conservatorship,” Whitmire said. Perhaps the most radical move the legislature can make to reform an agency, conservatorship involves appointing an outside panel to oversee every important decision a state agency’s director makes. It’s a tool the lege only pulls out when an agency is utterly beyond repair, and usually is accompanied by a complete housecleaning of all senior staff.

 Plenty of media was there; look for this on the 6 o’clock news and in tomorrow’s papers, maybe including some national press.

The Texas Youth Commission posted a press release about twenty minutes ago announcing that embattled executive director Dwight Harris was retiring. Harris said he’d planned to retire this summer anyway, but decided to move the date up in the wake of the Pyote scandal:

“I love too much this agency, the fine men and women who serve here, and the troubled children who come to us as a last hope to let myself be a distraction to the greater mission,” said Harris. “I wanted to stay through this session to promote our requests, but it’s clear to me now that my presence might actually get in the way of those things we gravely need.”

The release said that TYC’s General Counsel Neil Nichols will serve as the agency’s temporary acting executive director.

In his statement, Harris said that “news reports inaccurately insinuated” that he had knowledge of the sex abuse going on at Pyote.