Legislators will be discussing bills that will open some Child Protective Services proceedings and records that used to be closed to the public.

The bills are: HB 2453 (Children; Open Court Proceedings), HB2454 (CPS Information; Public Records), and HB 2455 (CPS; Criminal Investigations).

According to the Sierra Vista Herald, Capital Media Services reported that “the legislation includes a provision to make CPS release its records on request by any person in the case of a fatality or near fatality. Files could be kept confidential only if CPS or prosecutors could show that disclosure would cause specific material harm to an ongoing investigation.” This legislation is the result of Arizona House Government Committee hearings held a few months ago to learn the grueling details as to why three children died while under the watch of CPS.

I wrote an editorial explaining how CPS officials refused to acknowledge mistakes and that no one was held accountable. The Arizona Daily Star covered the hearings and reported how frustrated lawmakers were because of the many inconsistent answers given by CPS officials. According to the Star, Tucson Republican Jonathan Paton said, “We simply couldn’t get straight answers from the questions. We asked if there were mistakes made. Somehow there weren’t mistakes, but somehow there were. It was very confusing to me as far as what the real answer was.”

Columnist Laurie Roberts of the Arizona Republic has been a constant critic of CPS. She quoted House Government Chairman Kirk Adams as saying, “The biggest thing is opening up the records. We believe that more openness and transparency lead to more accountability. When people are being watched, they do things in the right way, and when there’s a veil of secrecy, you see a system that doesn’t operate in the right way.”

Roberts wrote that the most important bill would open CPS records in cases involving children who die of abuse. She explained how the Republic had to sue to find why three children under CPS supervision had died.

“Why a dead child needs privacy is beyond me,” Roberts wrote. “I can see, however, why CPS might want it. The law has for far too long allowed bureaucrats to hide their foul-ups and failures to follow through.”

The bottom line is children are dying because CPS policies are being ignored and gross incompetence is being hidden by confidentiality laws.

These bills need to be passed so that court records in cases where children are killed or seriously abused are open to the public. This is the only way people will be held accountable for deadly mistakes.