Gov. Greg Abbott says Texas Child Protective Services needs an overhaul. He made the comments while discussing his new book.
Abbott says the status quo at CPS, including a shortage of case workers and high turnover, is unacceptable and change needs to happen quickly.
"Most immediately, no more child deaths, we need to stop children dying, children being harmed," said Abbott.
CPS is under intense scrutiny after the death of Grand Prairie 4-year-old Leliana Wright.
Wright's mother and boyfriend are charged in her death.
The little girl's grandmother says she alerted CPS something was wrong, but nothing happened.
"So the most pressing goal is to clean up whatever is causing these children to be put into the situation where they die and second we need to restructure the organization of it," said Abbott.
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The governor's first order of business was changing leadership at the Department of Family and Protective Services which oversees CPS.
Hank Whitman, a former Chief of the Texas Rangers, is taking over DFPS. There's a new assistant commissioner for CPS too.
That's why we put a former leader of the Texas rangers in there, we are dealing with life and death situations and we want to make sure we have someone in there who understands how to engage in investigations that will prevent from being subjected to death," he said.
The new leadership has a lot of work ahead, the agency has $38 million dollars more to work with, but a big road ahead.
NBC 5's Cory Smith contributed to this report.
