A House panel is told that once the state's new child advocate is confirmed by the Senate, the review will begin.

01:00 AM EST on Thursday, March 31, 2005

BY LIZ ANDERSON
Journal State House Bureau

PROVIDENCE -- The state's assistant child advocate found herself in the cross hairs yesterday over her office's failure to convene a review of a 3-year-old's death in state custody.

Sharon O'Keefe had come to the House Finance Committee to urge them to scrutinize the budget of the Department of Children, Youth and Families

Instead, Rep. Eileen Naughton, D-Warwick, grilled O'Keefe about her decision, in January, to place on hold an inquiry into the beating death of 3-year-old Thomas J. Wright in Woonsocket, allegedly at the hands of his guardians.

O'Keefe repeated what she told The Journal last week: that the governor has appointed a new child advocate to lead the office, and the nominee, Jametta Alston, once confirmed by the Senate, should lead the review.

In the interim, O'Keefe said, the agency's annual report, due out soon, will indicate "things I have felt are necessary to recommend as a result of the preliminary investigation I did in the fall." She did not give details.

Naughton said the report would not carry the same weight as a panel's findings.

"In the case of a child's death I think this would be a priority . . . so that lessons learned should be immediately put into action," she said.

O'Keefe agreed. "I can only tell you that everything is ready to go," she said.

"Then it should go," retorted Naughton.

"I guess someone would have to tell me I have the statutory authority to do it," O'Keefe said.

Naughton maintained that time was ticking and evidence was getting stale. "You should feel the same urgency," she told O'Keefe. "It's very regrettable to me."

Governor Carcieri, through a spokesman, has maintained it is the Senate that is holding up the inquiry by not acting on his nominee.

Asked about that after the hearing, Naughton snapped: "Isn't that nice? Pass the buck."

She said the attitude of the child advocate's office appears to be "Let's wait." "A year later we'll be doing this," she said. "It's absolutely wrong."

Earlier, Naughton also pressed Patricia Martinez, acting director of the Department of Children, Youth and Families, what that department had learned from its own internal inquiry into the Wright case.

Martinez said the department was working on a new policy to provide both a more in-depth "preliminary assessment" of foster homes and ongoing assessments of the home during a child's stay there. The goal, she said, is to ensure that the child is "in a safe place."

Martinez said the department was also taking "very seriously" a critical federal evaluation of the DCYF last fall. She said the department, for example, was looking at ways for social workers to spend more time with families and children involved in DCYF care, and establishing a better complaint system.

Another hot button was the department's long-simmering plans for a new state Training School for Youth. Lawmakers last year approved the borrowing needed to start the project, with $11.4 million to be borrowed this year and $18.9 million next year toward the more than $67-million project.

As currently envisioned, the plans include $56.9 million for a 96-bed "youth development center" and a 52-bed "youth assessment center" on separate parcels of land in Cranston; $3.6 million for a community-based unit for girls; and $9.2 million for seven different transitional "community centers" around the state for boys deemed lower-risk.

Robert Brunelle, an associate director at the Department of Administration, said progress was being made on the designs, including a new plan for one of the Cranston buildings that no longer requires disturbing a pauper's cemetery and includes the repair of a serious wastewater-runoff issue.

Martinez promised lawmakers a full status report before week's end.

But lawmakers pressed for answers, including whether the project was on budget -- especially after Brunelle said the department was "not happy" with the first estimate they got on one building in the project.

"Do not come before this committee and give us the plans if you don't have a project cost," chastised committee Chairman Steven Costantino, D-Providence. "What if this project comes in at $72 million?"

"I can't give you something I don't have," said Brunelle, calling the figure preliminary. Pressed, he conceded, "I think we're going to have a problem staying within budget" because of rising construction costs.

"As far as I'm concerned there's no reason should we be even in this position," snapped Costantino. "If there are increased costs, it's because we're building something four years later" due to delays.

Costantino set a special hearing on the project for April 12.

Both finance committee members and community treatment providers questioned the DCYF's budget assumption that there will be just 310 children, on average, in community-based "purchased placements" in the coming budget year, well under current levels.

Bernard Smith, executive director of St. Mary's Home for Children, said under-budgeting that figure "makes about as much sense . . . as building a two-bedroom house when we have four children and one on the way."

Smith and other community providers also complained that the state had repeatedly level-funded what they were paid for increasingly costly care and frozen admissions to their programs.