Kansas legislators told the Kansas Watchdog recently what they were taking away from two days of hearings of the Joint Committee on Children’s Issues. 

These hearings were the subject of earlier Watchdog reports.

Watch the videos below: 

State Rep. Peggy Mast (R-Emporia):

SRS issues are very complex.  We’re talking about the court systems.  We’re talking about families.  We’re talking about guardians ad litems, as well as judges and social workers.  We’re talking about finance.  We’re talking about custody cases, especially the marital problems that sometimes result in conflicts with children. 

There are no easy answers.  And any time we touch one part of the system, we affect other parts.  So, I think we need to be very deliberate in our thoughts about this and how we’re going to change it.

State Senator Roger Reitz (R-Manhattan)

… these deliberations … give us some idea about the problems faced by SRS, and they’re very involved, and involve business with children. 

The bottom line on this is always … compassion for the child.  …  There’s a lot of that in place.

We still have a lot of places in the way the hierarchy is established to see to it they do get that compassion.  …

We want to tweak it as best we can.  I’m not much for changing the manipulations of the privatization.  I’m not much for privatization …  The bottom line is that it seems to be working as far as I’m concerned. 

I think there are ways to be sure  that when people have complaints we can do something about that.

I think we’ll work at it piece by piece and get something done.

State Rep Mike Kiegerl (R-Olathe), Chair, Joint Committee on Children’s Issue

… I think we made some progress.  I think there’s going to be some legislative changes made as a consequence of our meeting.

Considering the subject matter, it could have been much more contentious.

We did well over all.

State Senator Julia Lynn (R-Olathe), Vice-Chair, Joint Committee on Children’s Issue

… we have allowed by a series of choices made over the past several years to grow government to a point where we can’t manage it anymore. 

The accountability [to] the very people that we are to protect has been swept under the rug in many cases.  Not in all cases, but in many cases.  

I think the legislation that we’re going to have coming out hopefully will be a beginning, but I think we really need to look at the privatization, and whether or not that’s really creating money.  To me it’s another layer of the problem. 

Even though I hate to have to give SRS total control … I hate to give any government agency total control. 

But the fact of the matter is the contractors are another layer.  They are another part of the problem.  So we have to fix that part.

State Senator David Haley (D-Kansas City)

I think this meeting underscored what many of us feel, that is, sometimes children are removed from otherwise loving homes for one or two mistakes that are made within the home. 

Certainly as stewards of the state we have a responsibility — the legislature — to ensure the statutory authority for the removal of those children has not been abused. 

I hope that we will tweak  … in an appropriate fashion what are laws are to ensure those children are not removed for too long of a period of time for what otherwise might be considered proper and good parenting.

State Rep Bill Otto (R-LeRoy)

… one of the most shocking things to me … the [SRS] secretary even admitted … that the State of Kansas takes children away from parents — severing their parental rights — when the parent in question has committed no crime.  The child has committed no crime.  But they just didn’t do what the nanny state told them to.  I think I need to do something about that.  …  I intend to try. 

The second one is that I was shocked to find out …  homeless status — and the fact in one case even the lack of having a telephone — was the reason children were removed.  That shouldn’t be. 

No body should worry … It’s bad enough burden in this housing market losing your home without worrying that you lose your home and you lose your kids, too.

Those are two major things that I got out of this.