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Funds in peril over foster care

Human Services has failed to meet agreed-upon goals

April M. Washington, Rocky Mountain News

Published December 1, 2006 at midnight

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The state could lose $2.2 million in federal funding next year for failing to consistently address certain needs of children in foster care, budget officials said Thursday.

The Colorado Department of Human Services has not met several agreed-upon goals surrounding foster care.

As a result, the federal government is expected to withhold some Medicaid funds in March 2007.

The Colorado legislature will have to make up the shortfall in funding at a time when the Department of Human Services is struggling to make ends meet.

Some members of the Joint Budget Committee blamed a lack of funding, but others said the problem was mismanagement.

"The state is losing $2.2 million because they're not doing their jobs," said Rep. Al White, R-Winter Park, one of six members on the JBC.

Liz McDonough, spokeswoman for the Department of Human Services, made no excuses for not reaching compliance, but said the task has been challenging.

She said that counties are striving to meet the federal standards set forth in a 2003 action plan to improve foster-care programs.

"We have to meet national standards by a certain date. What (the JBC staff) is doing is trying to give lawmakers heads up," she said. "We are still feverishly working to meet our obligations. We still believe we're going to get there."

The budget staff presented a report to lawmakers Thursday on the status of a performance improvement plan submitted by the agency in 2003 in response to the federal Child and Family Service Review. The department's foster-care program is slated for a second federal review in 2008.

The JBC staff report found that Human Services is out of compliance in four key measures:

• The state is inconsistent in placing children in foster care in permanent homes. While it has made gains in finding permanent homes for children under 6, the same attention has not been given to achieving the same for older children.

• The state is inconsistent in preparing foster children 18 and older to live on their own, and has fallen short of ensuring that their family and cultural connections are maintained.

• The state has not met a goal of providing routine preventive dental services and medical screenings to children in foster care in a timely manner, primarily because some medical providers refuse to accept Medicaid.

• The state has fallen short in requiring social workers to meet face-to-face with children in foster care at least once a month, or 90 percent of the time.

Colorado's foster-care system was one of a number reviewed by the federal government in 2002. At the time, no state met all of the federal standards for foster care, McDonough said.

The initial report found that some agencies did not actively seek adoptive homes for children due to their ethnicity, age or disability. The report expressed concern regarding the number of placement changes children in foster care experienced, particularly older youths with mental health and developmental disabilities.

"I suspect the department will claim that they haven't met the goals because they're underfunded," said the JBC vice chair, Rep. Bernie Buescher, D-Grand Junction.

"The emphasis here is that the department has known for a long time they need to make some serious improvements regarding foster care," he said. "They have yet to figure out a way to meet the goals. The federal government is enforcing the goals and agreement, and rightfully so."

The Colorado Department of Human Services is the second-largest state government agency, with a $1.8 billion budget for fiscal year 2006. The department oversees 64 county social and human service systems.

The state has allocated $306 million to $359 million per year for child-welfare and family programs in the past six years.

While state funding has increased by an average of 3.3 percent per year, counties' child-welfare expenditures have exceeded state appropriations by as much as $33.4 million in 2001 and $14.2 million in 2005.

In 2005, counties received more than 67,000 reports of child abuse and neglect. Of the 40,690 children who received welfare services, nearly two-thirds remained in their home, 22 percent were adopted out of foster care and 12 percent were in foster care, according to the JBC report.