Weighing competing budget hot spots, the joint Capital Facilities Appropriations Committee voted this week to stop subsidizing the Office of Parental Defense, Utah's - and reputedly the nation's - first state-funded defender of parental rights. The action is preliminary, as legislators won't finalize the budget until the last day of the session.

But the governor and his staff aren't lobbying to keep the post, which was left vacant with the December resignation of Alicia Davis. Nor are parental-rights advocates, who gained traction last year in the wake of the high-profile Parker Jensen medical neglect case, upset by the committee's action - perhaps a sign they are losing ground.

New state Administrative Services Director D'Arcy Dixon Pignanelli insists the czar isn't dead.

"This is just a window of time for legislators to determine how to proceed," said Pignanelli.

One option on the table is to create an oversight committee that would set goals for the office and then bid for a contractor to provide the services.

But Senate committee chairman Bill Hickman, R-St. George, said the parental defense office wasn't getting enough bang for its buck.

"All but $75,000 of its $239,000 budget went to cover the salaries of Davis and her assistant," said Hickman.

Utah's parent-czar post was created last year by lawmakers who complained the state's child-welfare system was stacked against parents. Citizen activists wanted the office to assess complaints and represent falsely accused parents in court.

But Davis was never authorized or funded to do that. Her $239,000 budget was a far cry from the $4 million Guardian ad Litem's office, which represents children in welfare cases. So she and her assistant focused on training and creating standards for defense attorneys.

Davis surveyed parental defense attorneys about the hurdles they face and created an Internet information clearinghouse: http://www. parentaldefense.utah .gov.

She also organized a spring 2005 training seminar for gal defense attorneys, which is still on track, according to Pignanelli.

Daren Jensen, whose refusal to treat his then-12-year-old son Parker's cancer diagnosis with chemotherapy fueled last year's child-welfare debate, was unfazed by the prospect of losing the czar.

"It's too early to tell if it was valuable or not. If they've deemed it's not valuable and want to try something different, there must be justification for that," he said.

kstewart@sltrib.com