This Is Inexcusable

This article from the Houston Chronicle which came to my attention via the Crime and Justice News is a must read.

TX Juvenile Agency: Offender List Drops, Employee List Grows

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The Texas Youth Commission has half the offenders it did 18 months ago,
but the number of administrators overseeing the juvenile correctional agency
has grown and some new bureaucrats have enjoyed raises, says the
Houston Chronicle.

Stephen Foster, hired last year as general counsel at $104,000,
got a 7 percent raise to about $111,000 as the population of offenders
at his agency began plummeting; it stands at 2,200.

Some 368 administrators oversee the agency, 47 more than early last year,

when it had 4,000 offenders in its lockups, nearly double today's number.

As the offender population dwindled - the result of a new law that closed

the agency to offenders 18 to 21 and those sentenced on misdemeanors -

the total cost of paying all those employees has risen by nearly a quarter,

to $18.7 million a year.

Richard Nedelkoff, who was appointed by Gov. Rick Perry to head the agency

last year in the wake of the abuse scandal, said many of the hires were required

by legislature reforms 2007. He said he hired others simply to keep the agency from sinking.