Utah foster care placements up 38% in past decade, legislative audit finds

SALT LAKE CITY — The fallout of the 1993 federal lawsuit that challenged Utah's child welfare practices may be a 38 percent increase in children being placed in foster care, a new legislative audit suggests.

"Others believe the David C. vs. Leavitt lawsuit has made DCFS (the Division of Child and Family Services) and court staff risk averse and led them to protect children in foster care more than in-home," according to a performance audit of the Division of Child and Family Services released Tuesday. DCFS has operated under a court-appointed monitor for more than a decade under the lawsuit. Federal oversight ended in 2007.

During the past decade, foster care placements in Utah have increased by 38 percent while the number of families that receive in-home supports that allow children to stay in their family homes has decreased by 40 percent, the audit by Legislative Auditor General shows.

Audit supervisor Maria Stahla told legislative leaders Tuesday that the increase in the number of children placed into foster care when held up to the decrease of children receiving in-home services is "troubling to us. Outcomes are better for children when they are served in their own homes. … Our concern is that the balance has shifted so much. It is more costly for taxpayers and more harmful for children."

House Minority Leader Dave Litvack, D-Salt Lake, said it is a potentially dangerous self-perpetuating cycle when foster care placement is used as an alternative in child welfare cases because community services are insufficient or simply not available. That flies in the face of keeping a child in the home when it is safe to do so, he added.

Growth in the foster care system "reflects the child welfare community's change in practice to take children into custody more frequently and place them in foster care rather than provide in-home services," the audit states. However, funding for in-home services has decreased over the past five years.

The state and the communities need to being willing to invest money in home services, said Palmer DePaulis, executive director of the state Department of Human Services. DePaulis said that while home services are fully funded by the state's General Fund, Utah is able to turn to a blend of state money and federal dollars to pay for foster care placement.

Overall, however, home services are cheaper in the long run and can help the state resist relying on an "overused" foster care system, Stahla said.