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Only one youth reported abuse, ex-chief testifies
RAY PIERCE
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Former Department of Human Services Director Tom Dalton of Little Rock told lawmakers Monday that he didn't tell Gov. Mike Huckabee about allegations of abuse in the Youth Services Division because he didn't think the division faced a crisis.
In other testimony, a former employee at the Observation and Assessment Center in North Little Rock said the now-closed center was set up to fail.
Dalton, who left the department to be Huckabee's welfare reform director in June 1997, said that while he was department director, the only report of abuse came from a boy who said he was beaten and sexually assaulted with a broom handle. The prosecutors dropped the case because they lacked evidence, Dalton said.
He testified that there was no need to brief the governor or his staff about the report.
Dalton became director of the state's largest agency under Gov. Jim Guy Tucker in 1993. After being Huckabee's welfare czar for a year, he left state government in August to form his own municipal government consulting firm in Little Rock.
Dalton told a joint meeting of the Senate Children and Youth Committee and the House Aging, Children and Youth, Legislative and Military Affairs Committee, which are investigating the reports of abuse within the division, that he learned of that abuse allegation in April 1997, three months before he left the department.
He said he was confident that the division was taking care of the problems. He said former division director Ruth Whitney moved one of her assistant directors, Lloyd Warford, over the division's operations. Warford moved his office to the Observation and Assessment Center in North Little Rock, where the assault allegedly took place, Dalton said. He said Warford started managing the center aggressively.
Dalton testified that Whitney told him about the sodomy allegation, but she didn't give him a sense that a crisis existed.
"They were, in fact, getting things done, getting things accomplished," Dalton said. "Ruth was not presenting to me the need for long-term employee changes."
Dalton testified that he felt confident about Whitney's abilities. He said he had promoted her from a department staff attorney to division director and that he would hire her again if he had the chance.
Dalton said he defended Whitney in April during his only discussion with Huckabee about the division after the governor had learned about reports of abuse.
The state was considering firing Whitney, and Dalton spoke with Huckabee to save her job, Dalton said.
"She was probably the strongest manager we had, and a recommendation like that [to fire Whitney] didn't seem to make sense," he testified. "What she was putting forth in the month I was there made sense. I cannot tell you what worked and what didn't after I left."
At an April news conference, Huckabee said he had learned about reports of abuse investigated by Arkansas Democrat-Gazette associate editor Mary Hargrove. Huckabee announced then that Larance Johnson, assistant division director, had resigned. It was later learned that Johnson was told to resign.
Dalton testified that he agreed with his successor at the department, Lee Frazier, who told lawmakers last week that abuse will happen in the division.
"Don't get caught up in the firestorm and give knee-jerk reactions that are going to make things worse," Dalton said.
Dalton said the Observation and Assessment Center could be salvaged, but it shouldn't be a warehouse for youths committed to the division who have nowhere to go.
"We just couldn't move as quickly as we would have liked with our community-based programs," he said. "So the kids began backing up. There's nothing inherently wrong with that building. The problem was in the system."
He said the state's 27 juvenile court judges have to show discretion in deciding which youths are committed to the division.
In a two-year period ending in August, the center averaged nearly 108 youths, though it was designed to hold 84, according to the department. The count grew to 124 during October and November 1997.
Gerald Cole of Little Rock, a former center security guard from Feb. 1996 until it closed in August, testified that most employees thought the center would fail because of overcrowding and understaffing.
"That place was designed to carry 84 juveniles," he told the committee. "Had we capped it at 84 juveniles, we still didn't have the staff to operate it with 84. We were never given the resources to succeed."
Like Dalton, Cole said the center could work if the youth count didn't pass 84 and if it gets enough resources and a trained staff.
Cole, now a guard at the Alexander Youth Services Center, said understaffing sometimes meant that the center had one staff member for every 17 to 23 youths. That and a lack of training on defusing tension meant that staff may have to use force to regain control.
"Most of the kids were pretty good kids. Most were savable, but some of them really knew how to abuse the system," he said.
Cole said overcrowding and understaffing are becoming evident at the Alexander center.
Percy Nash was the last person to testify Monday. When he took the stand, the committee had dwindled from 17 legislators to five.
Nash disputed allegations that he tried to persuade workers at the North Little Rock center to change their stories.
In July at the committee's second meeting, former security chief Gary Staggs testified that Nash, one of the center's top officials, told Staggs to amend a report about seeing a worker choke a boy and banged him against a door after he tried to escape.
Staggs testified that he saw the attack and filed a report. Saying the boy had lied, Nash told Staggs to change his report, Staggs said.
Nash said he asked Staggs to amend his report because Staggs had told him that the worker had grabbed the boy by the collar. Nash said that wasn't the same as choking.
Senate committee chairman Mike Ross, D-Prescott, said the committee wants to hear from six witnesses -- including some of Huckabee's staff -- at its Monday meeting. The committee has struggled to hear more than two or three witnesses during its all-day sessions.

This article was published on Tuesday, September 22, 1998

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