PHOENIX (AP) -- Legislators dissecting the handling of cases involving children who subsequently died, allegedly killed by parents, say Child Protective Services may need new legal clout to force parents to get drug treatment and other help aimed at preventing abuse or neglect in troubled families.

Other ideas for legislative action on Child Protective Services aired during a five-hour House Government Committee hearing Tuesday included giving CPS direct access to criminal databases as well as new power to file missing-person reports for children believed to be at risk.

Depending on specifics of proposals eventually proposed for consideration in the Legislature's 2008 session, their consideration by lawmakers could re-ignite the often intense debate about the high-stakes tug-of-war between parents' rights and child safety.

"The debate has to focus on the safety of the child and I think the debate has to focus not only on parents' rights but also parents' responsibilities," said Ken Deibert, the Department of Economic Security director who oversees CPS.

Dissecting one of two high-profile cases involving the deaths of Tucson children, several legislators expressed frustration that CPS officials closed a case involving a mother without being able to get her to undergo drug-abuse testing and treatment.

That's like an electricity company that stops sending bills if they go unpaid, complained, Rep. Jonathan Paton, R-Tucson. "The response is to simply close the case."

Committee Chairman Kirk Adams, R-Mesa, said the state may need to strengthen the "ultimate hammer" that it has to ask a court to permanently sever dependency rights to children at risk if parents won't clean up their act.

"The only reason you would strengthen the dependency is so that you could enforce more compliance" with in-home or outpatient services, Adams said after the hearing.

Lillian Downing, the CPS administrator who oversees operations in the Tucson area, told the lawmakers that the mother of 4-year-old Ariana Payne and 5-year-old Tyler Payne didn't cooperate with CPS and a drug-treatment provider and that CPS couldn't substantiate drug-use allegations that supposedly put the children at risk.

However, Downing said CPS should have kept the case open longer to help ensure the children's safety. But that didn't happen because of a heavy workload for case managers and an experienced supervisor, she said.

The mother had sole legal custody of the children but turned them over to their father, who was barred by the couple's divorce decree from contact with the children. Christopher Payne had no history with CPS officials but he and his girlfriend now face charges of murdering the two kids.

"We should have kept the case open. We didn't," Downing said.

Downing said CPS asked the mother, Jamie Hallam, to participate in rehabilitative services but lacked authority to compel her because there wasn't proof of abuse.

"We had a mother that wouldn't take a urine test," she said. "We suspected during this time that she was abusing drugs. We did not know for a fact that she was."

Hallam later gave birth to another child who tested positive for exposure to methamphetamine.

Adams asked Downing, who said she has 16 years of CPS experience, how lawmakers could compel parents to accept needed services in order to protect their children.

Downing said she'd seen improvements during her 16 years with CPS. "I have also seen over the years Arizona statutes further limit our authority and our ability to keep children safe," she said.