AUSTIN – State child welfare officials have removed about a dozen foster children from a small private contractor in DeSoto, saying it failed to hire trained staff and properly screen foster parents.

The state recently refused to renew its contract with On Call Family Services Inc. "after a clear pattern of inability to meet both contract requirements and minimum residential child care licensing standards," Patrick Crimmins, spokesman for the Department of Family and Protective Services, said Friday.

Also Friday, state auditor John Keel criticized the DeSoto company for poor accounting practices and said it did not perform background checks as required on three-quarters of it subcontractors.

He is required by the Legislature to periodically check the books of several of the more than 200 private child-placing agencies in the state. Texas pays agencies a total of $345 million a year – 70 percent of it federal money – to care for abused and neglected children.

Keel's latest audit examined five agencies but was most critical of On Call Family Services, which does business as A Place Called Home.

State records show it had about seven foster homes and up to 20 children assigned to it after signing on with the state as a provider just over two years ago, Crimmins said.

Tammy Britton, executive director of A Place Called Home, said the department and the auditor nitpicked about minor things.

She said the department found little wrong with her operation in its first year. But she and five other owners of child-placing agencies in North Texas filed a civil rights complaint in July 2008 alleging racial and gender discrimination by the department.

"That's when they started coming in and hitting us with stuff like a line, a signature [missing on forms]. It was retaliation," Britton said. "We've never had a child die in our agency – not one."

Crimmins declined to comment on the discrimination complaint, still pending at the civil rights office at the Health and Human Services Commission, the department's parent agency.

He denied, though, that the department's child care licensing division singled out On Call for tougher enforcement because of the complaint.

"Our actions were simply based on their performance, which was below par," he said. "Proper screening and verification of foster parents is obviously vitally important, and shortcuts are not allowed."

Crimmins said that to minimize disruption to the foster children, they are being allowed to stay in foster homes recruited by On Call.

All but one of the homes have been transferred to other agencies, and the last will be switched next week, he said.

Keel said On Call was to be paid about $192,000 by the state last year.