AUSTIN — The federal judge in a lawsuit over Texas foster care has chided state officials for rebuffing information requests and has vowed to stick to her previously stated timetables for fashioning remedies that will overhaul the system, two plaintiffs' lawyers said Friday.

In her Corpus Christi courtroom Thursday, U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack flashed with irritation over the Department of Family and Protective Services' refusal to supply requested information to her two special masters in the case, the lawyers recounted.

Department spokesman Patrick Crimmins, though, downplayed the disagreements.

U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack

"We have worked cooperatively with special masters and will continue to do so," he said in a written statement.

Plaintiffs' lawyers Lonny Hoffman of Houston and Marcia Robinson Lowry of Chappaqua, N.Y., said that during a 90-minute status conference, Jack pressed state lawyers to explain why the department hasn't responded to queries about foster children's computerized case files, medical records and policies on how to handle abused children who are sexually aggressive.

"The special masters sent them interrogatories that were very specific, saying things like, 'Do you have a policy on this?' and 'Where in the record does this appear?'" said Lowry, who has led class-action suits against many states over their foster care systems. "On some of those issues, [state lawyers] said, 'We don't think we have to deal with that. We haven't been ordered to do so yet," she recalled.

Hoffman, a civil procedure professor at the University of Houston Law Center who has advised the plaintiffs' lawyers in the case, said Jack was upset over some of the state's latest replies to special masters Kevin Ryan and Francis McGovern.

The responses "looked as though the state was at least partially stonewalling and hiding behind legalistic objections," Hoffman said. "And she was none too happy about that. She made it clear that she has firm deadlines in her interim order that she expects to keep."

Jennifer Speller, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Ken Paxton, declined to comment.

Crimmins emphasized that Gov. Greg Abbott and the Legislature "have made CPS and foster care an urgent priority."

In December 2015, Jack ruled that the state's long-term foster care arrangements are "broken" places where "rape, abuse, psychotropic medication and instability are the norm."

In a final set of remedies she perhaps will issue this summer or fall, Jack is expected to demand that the state hire more Child Protective Services foster care caseworkers and spend more to make sure it has contracts with a wider array of vendors who will house and help foster children.

Abbott, Paxton and GOP legislative leaders have criticized Jack for overreaching. They have said the state was making improvements and argued the suit was an unnecessary infringement on state's rights.

Since December's emergency CPS funding request that Abbott and the legislative leaders approved, CPS has begun adding 105 more of the "conservatorship caseworkers."

This week's tentatively approved budgets in the budget-writing committees of both chambers would add hundreds more. They also would provide some additional money for rolling out a new procurement method known as "foster care redesign."

At Thursday's conference, Jack said "she was waiting to see what the Legislature winds up doing," Lowry recounted.

The judge may hold another status conference, possibly in Dallas, shortly after lawmakers adjourn May 29, according to Lowry, Hoffman and Crimmins.

Jack asked for a courtroom demonstration of CPS' databases affecting foster children, Lowry said.

"The computer system is chaotic," she said. "It takes quite a lot for a caseworker to find things. Sometimes, they absolutely can't."

Crimmins said the database "is admittedly an out-of-date system, but modernization is already underway and the system is more user-friendly for caseworkers."

On Thursday, Protective Services Commissioner Henry "Hank" Whitman testified before Jack.

"The judge indicated she was impressed with the commissioner's commitment," Crimmins said.

Jack complimented him, Hoffman and Lowry said.

But they said she expressed frustration over how lawyers for Paxton and the department continue to vow to appeal.

"The lawyers for the state and the AG's office are continuing to fight us at every turn," Hoffman said.