Editorial: State is failing children

Wednesday, April 28, 2004 | 8:53 a.m.

After spending a week in Nevada, a team of 46 federal officials has filed a preliminary report highly critical of how the state cares for abused and neglected children. The team, from the U.S. Children's Bureau, pored through records, interviewed state officials and inspected several child-care sites around the state. Its final report will not be published until next month, but given the extent of deficiencies it listed, it's not likely there will be much change in its findings.

After the 1997 Legislature closed the Southern Nevada Children's Home, reasoning that foster care was cheaper even though it would mean separating siblings, the Sun began a two-month investigation into child welfare services. Sadly, many of the same problems we pointed out then were contained in the Children's Bureau report. Included among the problems cited in the report were a lack of legal representation for the children, long waits to get into foster homes, a backlog of parental-rights cases (which leaves children in limbo) and a system that varies radically from region to region. While the system remains broken, children remain abused and neglected.

The state was given 90 days from the end of May to submit a plan for correcting the problems. The plan will be next to worthless, however, unless Gov. Kenny Guinn and the 2005 Legislature commit to making child welfare a top priority, with a budget to match.