Krusin' the Capitol
By Nebraska State Senator Lowen Kruse
2004
Week 6
February 14, 2004
Hi
Nebraska is indeed the Good Life. I am proud of so many accomplishments in
our state. However, this week we were told, in several ways, the Good Life is
in trouble.
It was dismaying to hear the head of probation bluntly say, "Probation in
Nebraska is not working." He told us in his testimony that we simply do not have
adequate staff to give good supervision and counsel to offenders who are in a
crisis stage of their lives.
Parole officers, who deal directly with prisoners who are being released to
live among us, are short on staff and will be severely short as the Parole
Board releases more prisoners a few months early in order to give them a counselor
to help them adjust to the outside.
My long-standing concern about the lack of treatment for drug addicts in
prison was affirmed. Drug treatment in prison is successful and very cost
effective. However, most serious drug addicts, which is over half of the prisoners,
do not receive help, even if they request it.
In each case, we are short of funds, especially after the heavy cuts of the
last two years. In each of these, failing to do the job this year will create
major costs in future years. Our taxes will go up, with no true benefit.
Beyond corrections, we heard again that $1 spent on mental health for the
young saves $7 in future costs. Would you like to buy stock like that?
Hopefully we will find $$ for more community-based mental health.
Tax auditors each bring in an average of $600,000 per year. Ten more would
bring in $6 million -- with the cost being less than 1/10 of that. Enough
"profit" to heal several crippled agencies. (There would be a diminishing return
on more than ten, but still a good return.) So what is the governor's budget
proposal? Reduce the auditors, in effect. For reason. When you are out of
money, and cannot borrow, you cannot buy into "stock" with that high return.
By far the most discouraging word was from case workers. One, who works to
prepare for successful adoptions, said some children wait for two years to be
considered for adoption. Staff cannot get through the backlog of children.
Another said we do not have the $$ for training police officers to
investigate child abuse complaints. About 20% of complaints are not investigated
properly. We are 50% short of caseworkers to meet nationally accepted standards.
(So are many other states.)
We agonize over the 30 children killed by abuse in the last few years. Well
we should. However, we should have far more agony about abused children who
live. Does it sound shocking to say many would be better off dead? I sure
hope it does. It is the simple truth.
We heard the story of a 12-year-old girl who was curled into a fetal position
on a chair in the caseworker's office, with a large coat over her head.
Would not come out. A highly skilled counselor could bring her to peek out and
make some very terse comments -- which would cause her to remember a horrible
piece of life that caused her to retreat into her little sanctuary. It took two
hours of intensive work before she could uncurl. What are her chances for a
healthy, happy, productive life? Given that this counselor has more cases
than she can handle, some of those promise to be productive, and there is no one
else -- Zip.
It is heartbreaking to deal with teens who were seriously abused children, as
both Ruth and I have done. We have witnessed the ongoing pain, reactive poor
decisions, and the grieving events which drain the energy of the whole family
and greatly reduce the opportunity of success for other family members.
We have staff members with twenty years of experience who are burned out and
have walked away from the job because the tasks cannot be done with the staff
at hand and they cannot sleep. We found evidence of countless public servants
who truly care, work extra unpaid hours, and could pull down twice the salary
in the private sector. They stay because they deeply believe it is their
duty to keep the store open. What happens when they burn out?
Two auditors, specialists in fraud, whom we have trained in our new
accounting system and who accept half of the going salaries in the private sector, will
be dismissed if the governor's cuts are applied to the auditor's office. The
auditor openly called the decision "incomprehensible."
Most agencies have absorbed the cuts, but when the cumulative cut is 35%, as
has happened, programs are crippled.
In the midst of this, one gets an e-mail from a tax watcher saying that
"they" all whine but no one is hurt. Cut some more. Be bold! That answer is pure
cowardice. I promise we will be as bold as we can possibly be.
O my. This is terribly sad. However, it is part of the story of where we
are. I promise to have some good news, and a little fun, next week.
Lowen
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