On questions of public concern and political importance, Gov. Chris Gregoire tends to construct an answer on a foundation of advice from experts of her choosing.
Washington Learns guided her education policy and a blue ribbon commission helped shape her health care agenda.
She went outside the state for the authoritative voice that steered her to order cable barriers removed from a stretch of I-5 near Marysville.
There are exceptions to the pattern, most notably her continued refusal to take child welfare and protection programs out of the Department of Social and Health Services and put them in a separate, new agency.
Her position is counter to a recommendation from a bipartisan task force issued in October following two years of work. That panel, formed by the governor, concluded a new department would better deliver services to children and families.
Gregoire is not philosophically opposed to reorganization; she favored it before taking office.
She says it would be costly and disruptive. Moreover, DSHS is in the throes of an evolution she hopes will achieve the change advocates of a break-up seek.
The subject is getting a fresh dose of attention because the agency is in the news again.
This time the question is why the agency put a 12-year-old Puyallup boy back into the care of relatives even though one of them was suspected of abusing him.
The case and the governor’s decision disheartens state Sen. Val Stevens, R-Arlington, who for years has advocated that Children’s Administration be an independent department.
In 2005, she stood down from that position and joined the task force because of its charge to tell the governor what changes are needed in how the state serves children and families.
This group spent two years in discussions and in pursuit of thoroughly thought out conclusions.
They veered away from talk of how reorganization would happen to concentrate on the larger question of whether it should occur at all.
On Oct. 26, 2006, a majority agreed it should.
Stevens backed that recommendation. So did the director of the state’s Office of the Family and Children’s Ombudsman, the leader of the Children’s Home Society, a Thurston County judge, a King County Juvenile Court Administrator and a retired social worker.
Among the dissenters were two state lawmakers and Cheryl Stephani, assistant secretary in charge of Children’s Administration.
Details of the task force’s work are not widely known because no final task force report has been issued; one could be released this week, however.
Stevens is no longer holding her tongue.
“I’m not going to go along with this wait-and-see any longer,” she said.
“It’s very sad. This most recent case of abuse is going to make more emphatic the need for change.”
And, she said, it’s a reason for the governor to reconsider the advice she’s received.
Reporter Jerry Cornfield’s column on politics runs every Sunday: 360-352-8623 or jcornfield@heraldnet.com.
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