From The Dallas Morning News:AUSTIN – The 11 Corpus Christi State School employees accused of forcing profoundly disabled residents into a late-night "fight club" were hired despite poor employment histories and little work experience beyond fast-food jobs, according to personnel records obtained by The Dallas Morning News.
Two had already been disciplined by the Department of Aging and Disability Services, which runs the institutions for the mentally disabled. One failed to report a fight that resulted in an injury; the other was found to have verbally abused a resident, records show.
Another had been suspended from a private care facility for pushing a resident into excessive horseplay, resulting in a state investigation.
All 11 employees have either left the Corpus Christi State School or have been fired over the orchestrated fights, which were recorded on a cellphone camera on 16 days between late 2007 and early this year. Six of the employees face criminal charges over the mistreatment, which involved at least 16 state school residents.
None of the employees could be reached for comment.
The abuse has lit a fire under state lawmakers already scrambling to overhaul Texas' institutions for the disabled, which are plagued by abuse and neglect allegations and a lingering U.S. Justice Department investigation into civil rights violations across the system of 13 facilities. Hiring such employees in the first place "is managerial incompetence," said Dennis Borel, executive director of the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities.
Added Colleen Horton, with the University of Texas Center for Disability Studies: "When you give people with limited education and limited skill full control over every aspect of vulnerable residents' lives, it's a recipe for disaster."
Agency officials say they have limited hiring options, particularly with low direct-care salaries and sky-high staff turnover rates. If their entry-level positions required experience in direct care of residents – as opposed to any work experience – there would be few people to hire. And the 11 employees are a fraction of the thousands of dedicated employees who have made working at the state schools their career, officials say.
"Of course we want to get people who understand the job," spokeswoman Laura Albrecht said. "Obviously these individuals did not understand that, which is why they're no longer employed with the state of Texas."
Among the findings in the employee personnel records:
• Three of the 11 employees had never held a job for more than a year when they applied to work at the Corpus Christi facility.
• Just four had any direct-care experience; most had worked as fast-food busboys, forklift operators or housekeepers.
• All had base salaries under $22,000, and none had more education than a high school diploma or GED.
Of the four employees with direct-care experience, one had been fired from a private-sector residential care facility. Another had already been terminated from the Corpus Christi State School over allegations of mistreatment.
Gabriel Barrera was terminated from the state school in mid-2008 when he witnessed one resident punch another in the eye but didn't report the injury. Though the injury occurred in the middle of the night – around the same month and time that fight clubs were taking place at the Corpus Christi State School – it's unclear whether the incident was related to organized fighting.
Six months after being fired, Barrera reapplied for work at the state school but was not hired. Maria Puebla, a former Sonic employee and housekeeper who had six months of home health care experience before coming to work for the Corpus Christi State School, was suspended for three days in August for verbally abusing a resident.
And Timothy Dixon, the 31-year-old former state school employee accused of filming the late-night fight clubs on his cellphone camera, was hired at the Corpus Christi facility despite being fired from previous jobs at Wendy's and a community care facility for people with disabilities.An executive with the Corpus Christi Human Development Center said Dixon was fired in 2006 for absenteeism. But in 2000, he was suspended from the center over allegations of rough horseplay and teasing.
He came back to work after state investigators couldn't determine whether the allegations constituted abuse. Officials with the Human Development Center said no one from the state called to check Dixon's references before hiring him at the Corpus Christi State School. Those who face criminal charges are Dixon, Jesse Salazar, Guadalupe De La Rosa, Vincent Johnson, D'Angelo Riley and Stephanie Garza. The others were either fired or no longer worked for the agency at the time the scandal was revealed.
Advocates for moving people with disabilities from institutions into community care say that unqualified people are caring for residents throughout the state school system, and efforts to solve the problem have repeatedly fallen flat.
"The question has to be asked, 'Can this system be fixed?' " Horton said. "The millions that have been poured into the system over the past two years haven't ended the abuse and exploitation."
Agency officials say they're working tirelessly with lawmakers to improve salaries and working conditions. But they question the premise that there's a difference in quality between state school direct-care workers and those operating in the community.
The qualifications to work in a state school are "comparable to entry-level positions in the private or public sector," Albrecht said.
