Texas’s legislators have abandoned efforts to spend millions of dollars to acquire what experts call ineffective Legislators again tried to finance the program.
This is the second consecutive budget cycle in which the legislature considered the possibility of buying products that promise to find missing children, just to change the course after information organizations recorded lack of evidence that the kits are working.
PROPUBLICA and TRIBUNE initially published their conclusions in the 2023 investigation, which revealed The state spent millions of dollars on a set to identify children Made by a company based on Waco, it is called the National Identification Program, run by former NFL Kenny Hansmir player. According to state records, he had a history of legal and business problems, and although less expensive alternatives were available to the legislators, Hansmir used outdated and exaggerated statistics on missing children to help increase sales.
He also managed to develop ties with the powerful Texas legislators who supported his initiatives. In 2021, the Senator of the Republican State Donna Campbell was the author of the bill, which created the Children’s Security Program in Texas. The measure, in addition to guaranteed any state financing, will go to the Hansmire business when legislators allocated money for a kid’s identification set. That year, the state awarded its campaign about $ 5.7 million.
Two years later, the House, and the Senate, offered to spend millions more on the program. But if the final budget was published, approximately a month after the investigation, Legislators pulled out funding. They refused to answer questions about why.
Funding for the program has reappeared in the home budget. Armand Martinez State Representative, a lower house budget, offered to withdraw $ 2 million to buy kits for students in kindergarten in the second grade. The Senate, however, did not include this funding in its budget.
The editorial staff published a story in early May about Proposed expense plan. The final version of the budget, which legislators conducted this week, had no designated financing for identification kits.
Campbell, Martins and leaders of the House and Senate budget committees did not answer requests in an interview with the editorial board or written questions about why the financing did not final reduction.
This week, Hansmir did not respond to interview request. In the previous answer, he told the editorial staff that he had solved his financial problems and said that his campaign kits helped determine the children missing, although he did not give any specific examples. Hansmir ordered the journalists to appeal to “any policeman”, calling several departments. The editorial staff contacted them several. Of the dozen Texan law enforcement agencies who responded to the requests, no one could determine one case where the kits helped find escape or abducted child.
Stacey Pearson, a child’s security consultant who previously oversee the Louisiana clicking for the missing and exploited children, said the legislators had made the right decision to exclude the budget’s identification sets because there is no data that prove that they really help increase the safety of children. It remains disappointed that Texas legislators continue to pay any attention to the program and hope that they will not think about financing in the future.
“Every dollar and every minute, every hour you spend on such a program is a dollar and a minute and an hour you can’t spend what is more promising and lighter,” Pearson said.
