Some KXAN investigations that led to meaningful change in 2023

AUSTIN (KXAN) – KXAN investigators spent 2023 working hard on projects that stemmed from viewers’ questions and concerns. Many of those projects resulted in change in Austin and the state. 

From multi-faceted all-hands-on-deck projects like KXAN’s deep dive into TX tag troubles to smaller-in-scale investigations that led to a woman at the center of an Austin Police Department civil rights investigation getting added to a missing persons list and eventually found, here are some of the investigations that had an impact this year. 

TxTag Troubles

Auto-payment issues, double billing and incorrect statements were all complaints KXAN received – by the hundreds – from Texas Department of Transportation toll road and TxTag users. 

In the TxTag Troubles investigative effort, KXAN allocated more than two dozen journalists to hold TxDOT officials accountable, fight for public records, catalog hundreds of tips and complaints, and sift through thousands of pages of vendor contracts. When TxDOT wouldn’t schedule an interview, reporters attended public meetings to question top agency officials.

Because of the team’s diligence, many drivers who reached out to KXAN got their issues resolved. Further, after the investigation aired, Texas legislators passed a bill that hopes to improve Texas’ tollway billing and collections practices by requiring tolling entities to immediately notify customers if there is a problem processing toll charges through the electronic payment method associated with their accounts.

No more paper license plates: new law tears up old system

A six years-long series of investigations revealed criminals were not only counterfeiting dealer tags but also infiltrating the TxDMV system to print and sell real ones, with fraudulent information, by posing as car dealers. These phony tags were used to turn vehicles into virtually untraceable “ghost cars.”

In 2023, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill into law that will stall the Texas paper license plate problem by tearing up the current system. The new law replaces all paper tags with metal ones, and will go into effect July 1, 2025.

“If it wasn’t for you guys exposing it, we’d still be in the trenches fighting,” Sgt. Jose Escribano with the Travis County Constable’s Office Pct. 3 told KXAN after the new law was signed.

Undercover sting, rejected car inspections: How emissions testing fraud impacts Austin

In Summer 2023, KXAN reported on state inspectors in Austin and Kyle, arrested for selling fraudulent vehicle inspection reports. Since then, two Texas Department of Public Safety program inspectors in Dallas were charged with “organized criminal activity” for helping facilitate fraudulent emissions tests.

Fraud is so pervasive, the Travis County Tax Office has refused, for nearly eight months, to accept vehicle inspection reports, for cars subject to emissions testing, that are not from Travis and Williamson counties, KXAN learned exclusively. 

After KXAN investigator Matt Grant's report, TCEQ said it wants to learn why investigators believe five million vehicles were illegally inspected in 2022 in a process known as “clean scanning” – a scheme where fraudulent emissions tests are registered as official state records. The about-face call for a face-to-face comes after the agency’s chairman called the calculations “a dramatic overstatement.”

As Texas’ dead suspect loophole closes

Texas police no longer have discretion to withhold records when someone dies in their custody. A new law took effect earlier in 2023, closing the state’s dead suspect loophole – an “unintended consequence” of an exception to the Public Information Act initially meant to protect the privacy of suspects who never go through the court process.

Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, filed legislation each session since 2017 to end the loophole, which KXAN investigators revealed has been used widely by police across the state for years to keep certain details about deaths – including audio and video – secret. In the most recent regular session, the measure received renewed, bipartisan support following the deadly mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde.

While it faced a late-stage battle between the two chambers and their leaders, the bill ultimately passed and made it to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk. The governor chose not to sign the bill but instead allowed it to become law without his signature. Some say that move signaled continued controversy that promises to spill into future sessions and possibly even court.

Texas governor signs major patient safety bill into law that was sparked by KXAN investigation

Gov. Greg Abbott signed a major patient safety bill into law in June, capping a bipartisan achievement that will reform the Texas Medical Board, protect patients from potentially dangerous doctors and, supporters say, save lives.

“This bill will absolutely save lives,” said Rep. Julie Johnson, D-Farmers Branch, who introduced HB 1998 in direct response to KXAN’s “Still Practicing” investigations. “I’m thrilled we got this passed.”

The new law addresses problems KXAN first uncovered. Five years after the infamous Texas surgeon, nicknamed “Dr. Death,” was sentenced to life in prison, we wanted to see if anything in the state had changed. Our investigation found at least 49 doctors practicing in Texas, despite having their medical licenses revoked in other states. We found no record of those out-of-state disciplinary actions listed on their Texas Medical Board physician profiles, even though it’s required by state law.

Governor signs bill for four years of Texas Veterinary Board oversight

Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed legislation authorizing four years of oversight for the agency tasked with regulating the state’s animal doctors.

Lawmakers passed the bill during the 88th legislative session, to attach the Texas Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners to another state agency temporarily, in order to help with data collection and management issues. The legislation stipulates that the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation will take over policymaking and administrative decisions for TBVME.

The Board has faced issues over the last six years obtaining and maintaining a database to keep regulatory and disciplinary information about its licensees — issues which have been documented by the Sunset Advisory Commission in several reviews and reports. KXAN investigators have been following those calls for reform, after discovering some disciplinary documents still missing from the public licensee look-up website in 2022.

The legislation — which took effect on Sept. 1 — allows TBVME to retain its rulemaking powers on matters related to “scope of practice” or “health-related standard of care” for veterinary medicine.

Austin Police enter woman into missing persons database after KXAN asks questions

The woman at the center of a civil rights investigation and federal lawsuit against two Austin Police Department officers was missing for over a year, according to her attorney and family.

The case and lawsuit were triggered by a video capturing Simone Griffith, 28, being repeatedly punched by an APD officer at an Austin strip mall in 2021.

Records show Griffith’s family attempted to make an official missing persons report and more than a week went by before APD entered her into a statewide database and launched an effort to find her. APD said they didn’t know about the report earlier because the call was originally entered in the system incorrectly.

The agency said the report of a missing adult should have been reported as “urgent” and, generally, those calls are entered into the statewide law enforcement database where missing persons are tracked on the same day the report is taken.

APD said Griffith’s case was not.

APD said it entered Griffith into the statewide law enforcement database and opened an investigation on July 3. APD said another law enforcement agency found Griffith days later and she was removed from the database.

Austin ISD begins sharing special education evaluation numbers in public meetings after KXAN reporting and questioning

Austin ISD has been under investigation by the Texas Education Agency since November 2021 over concerns related to special education. It came after a federal protection and advocacy agency Disability Rights Texas filed a lawsuit against the district alleging it was “failing students with disabilities because its evaluation system is broken” and in violation of state-mandated timelines.

Then in February 2023, court records filed in the ongoing lawsuit revealed the district was behind on evaluating more than 800 students.

In March, the TEA published a report confirming Austin ISD committed 40 violations of special education requirements, including failing to evaluate students suspected of needing special education services within the state and federally mandated timeline.

KXAN reporting found students who asked for help in previous school years were still waiting for an individual education plan

The rehabilitation of the special education program at Austin ISD has been called priority 1A by school officials and board members since the newest trustees took office in January 2023. At the time, the district had exceeded the federal timeline to evaluate more than 1,700 kids suspected of needing special education services. Since then, the district has evaluated more than half of those students, according to its numbers. 

The federal government requires school districts to evaluate students within 45 school days of getting parental consent. TEA investigators found the district repeatedly failed to do this on time. The investigation found that sometimes special education officials delayed evaluating students for nine months.

But the problems within the district’s special education program go beyond months-long delays in evaluating students. Separately, once the evaluation is done, Texas law requires school districts to create an individualized education plan, or IEP, to help students with learning disabilities. Districts must devise each plan within 30 calendar days of evaluating a student. 

Data from the Texas Education Agency, obtained by KXAN, shows more than 400 students who last school year were flagged as potentially needing special education services were still waiting for the district to provide that help at the start of September. It was weeks into the new school year. The district already knew they qualified for the services.

KXAN investigation into OmniBase led to multiple bills being filed to eliminate or change the program ­­­­

The Texas program that allows judges to block driver license renewals over unpaid traffic tickets faced challenges in the 88th legislative session.

It came after a KXAN investigation revealed more than 980,000 current court orders to block drivers from getting their license renewed, as of October 2022. Those were sent to the Texas Department of Public Safety vendor OmniBase.

Already, more than 445,000 Texans can’t get their license renewed or replaced if they are flagged under the state’s Failure to Appear and Pay program, according to DPS data.

The system, critics say, leaves some of the state’s poorest drivers in debt, without a license for years, and at risk for more charges — and even jail time — if they get on the road.