What The Hell America!

Texas state legislators dropped efforts to spend millions of dollars to buy what experts call ineffective child identification kits weeks after ProPublica and The Texas Tribune reported that lawmakers were again trying to fund the program.

This is the second consecutive budget cycle in which the Legislature considered purchasing the products, which promise to help find missing children, only to reverse course after the news organizations documented the lack of evidence that the kits work.

ProPublica and the Tribune originally published their findings in a 2023 investigation that revealed the state had spent millions of dollars on child identification kits made by a Waco-based company called the National Child Identification Program, run by former NFL player Kenny Hansmire. He had a history of legal and business troubles, according to public records, and although less expensive alternatives were available to lawmakers, Hansmire used outdated and exaggerated statistics about missing children to help boost sales.

He also managed to develop connections with powerful Texas legislators who supported his initiatives. In 2021, Republican state Sen. Donna Campbell authored a bill that created a Texas child safety program. The measure all but guaranteed any state funding would go to Hansmire’s business whenever lawmakers allotted money for child identification kits. That year, the state awarded his company about $5.7 million for the kits.

Two years later, both the House and the Senate proposed spending millions more on the program. But when the final budget was published, about a month after the newsrooms’ investigation, legislators had pulled the funding. They declined to answer questions about why.

Funding for the program appeared again in this year’s House budget. State Rep. Armando Martinez, a Democratic member of the lower chamber’s budget committee, suggested allotting $2 million to buy the kits for students in kindergarten through the second grade. The Senate, however, didn’t include that funding in its version of the budget.

The newsrooms published a story in early May about the proposed spending plan. The final version of the budget that lawmakers passed this week again had no designated funding for the identification kits.

Campbell, Martinez and the leaders of the House and Senate budget committees did not respond to the newsrooms’ interview requests for this story or written questions about why the funding didn’t make the final cut.

Hansmire did not reply to an interview request this week. In a prior response, he told the newsrooms he’d resolved his financial troubles and said that his company’s kits have helped identify missing children, though he did not provide any concrete examples. Hansmire told reporters to reach out to “any policeman,” naming several departments specifically. The newsrooms contacted a number of them. Of the dozen Texas law enforcement agencies that responded to the queries, none could identify one case where the kits helped find a runaway or kidnapped child.

Stacey Pearson, a child safety consultant who previously oversaw the Louisiana Clearinghouse for Missing and Exploited Children, said legislators made the correct decision to eliminate the identification kits from the budget because there is no data proving they actually help improve kids’ safety. She remains disappointed that Texas lawmakers continue to give the program any attention and hopes they won’t contemplate the funding in the future.

“Every dollar and every minute, every hour that you spend on a program like this, is a dollar and a minute and an hour that you can’t spend on something that is more promising or more sound,” said Pearson.