San Jose Inside has learned that the Santa Clara County Office of Education cut tutoring services for foster youth and filed questionable federal grant reports while wasting more than a half-million dollars that could have helped the county's most needy children.

Despite calling it “a humanitarian issue,” Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese said he doesn’t want to assign blame to the the county’s Department of Family and Children’s Services, which has failed to answer thousands of calls to the local child abuse hotline—the public’s first point of contact with welfare services.