Cuts would hit child welfare hard

Foster parents, workers and volunteers from around the state painted a bleak picture Tuesday for the state's already battered child welfare system if proposed 2010 budget cutbacks are imposed.

The group told lawmakers assigned to oversee state programs designed to protect the more than 2,664 children in state custody that Utah is heading toward another David C. lawsuit, a federal case officially ending this past December after more than 14 years in court.

Revenue shortfalls that legislative leaders have told all state departments they must share equally will dismantle many of the improvements to the system made under the David C. settlement agreement that came after one of the most protracted, most expensive court battles in state history, members of the Child Welfare Legislative Oversight Panel were told.

A 3.5 percent cut in the reimbursement rate to foster care parents in the current year, and another pending 3.5 percent cut not only make recruiting and training foster parents more difficult but will keep Utah from meeting state and federal legal requirements to provide foster care, Kelly Peterson, Utah Foster Care Foundation chief executive officer, told the panel.

"If we don't have a place to put them, kids get moved around to different places, or put in institutional care, and makes permanent placement impossible," Peterson said.

No one is crying wolf or inflating numbers, foster parent Jennifer Gardner told lawmakers, noting that the cost of the foster children in her home amounts to $80 per month that comes out of her own pocket.

"People have this notion that people become foster parents to make money when in fact families are putting out their own money to buy clothes, many on credit cards which means they'll be paying those purchases off long after the child is gone," she said.

Foster children are expected to be part of the family, "but they are in state custody, not in our custody," Gardner said, adding that the state is falling far short of adequately reimbursing expenses.

"We shouldn't have to pay for the privilege," she said. "Lawmakers look at the numbers, but they don't see the faces."

Eric Bjorklund, a group home manager, said foster care services in Utah are in a delicate, easily damaged condition, particularly if the state moves to save money by pressuring placement of special needs children in less-expensive but more vulnerable conditions.

The state saved $10,000 by moving an abusive foster child into a family situation that could set up a much more costly lawsuit if the boy harms the other three foster kids in that home, Bjorklund said, noting that the family had not been advised of the child's violent history.

The committee is the group that needs to be convinced, said co-chairman Sen. Allen Christensen, R-North Ogden, "You're preaching to the choir. Finding the dollars, unlike the federal government, our printing machine is broken, and trying to allocate them is nearly impossible," he said.

The panel took the action it could as an advisory panel to the Legislature by approving a motion to fully support upcoming budget requests that would protect funds for foster care services.

e-mail: jthalman@desnews.com