The Department of Family and Protective Services removed the children on April 3 from the ranch owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It was believed that rampant sexual and physical abuses were ongoing.
The claim and fear has proven not to be the case. At least on a mass order. By not taking only children that the state could prove were being abused Texas violated their power and voided a possible chance to stop child abuse for the children that may have been in danger.
The
state is now having to pay for the DNA testing of each of the children they detained from the ranch along with other costs. The state spent over $5.2 million dollars for the basic care and counseling to the children of the sect while they have been in state custody. Much of those costs were from transportation and employee overtime hours.
The legal fees have cost the state $2.2 million dollars. Most of those fees will have to be picked up by Tom Green County where the district court hearings took place and Schleicher County where the ranch is located.
Neither of those counties have the funds in which to pay those court costs.
Neither county, Woodward said, has the money to cover the legal costs. "We're at a point now where we're going to start limping along pretty badly," he said.
There were 599 DNA tests that have not finished being processed. The results will be ready on Tuesday.
The final costs though may loom much higher than the estimated figures at the present time. It is safe to say that those at the ranch will not be required to foot any of the financial costs of taking care of the children while they were in state custody.
"I said from the word go, if there's sex with underage girls, nail their butt," Curtis Griffin, owner of the local fuel depot, told the Los Angeles Times. "But nail the right people. We're going to wind up with a $30 million bill here in this little county because these people didn't have their ducks in a row."
The one cost factor that hasn't been added into account is the lawsuits that the ranch could be drawing up. By the mass exodus removal of their children they have a heck of a case. Is it possible Texas could be heading to bankruptcy court soon?
