CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The full Senate will receive a foster care bill that has restored some enumerated rights for children but still cuts an intended increase of financial support for families.
The Senate Finance Committee voted 10-7, along party lines, to advance House Bill 4092.
The vote frustrated Democrats on the committee and sets up a showdown with the House of Delegates, which considers the funding a priority.
“I just wonder what happened with this body on this particular bill when we’re talking about children,” said Senator John Unger, R-Berkeley.
West Virginia’s foster care system has been growing at an alarming rate, related to the state’s struggles with drug addiction.
More than 7,000 children are in state custody. About 450 of those are out of state, mostly in group residential homes or long-term psychiatric facilities.
House Bill 4092 is a broad-ranging bill enumerating certain rights for foster families and providing greater detail for the duties of guardians ad litem, who officially speak on behalf of children.
Originally, it increased the per diem for foster families while also establishing an equivalent rate for kinship families — those who have taken in a child but who haven’t gone through certification.
Under the bill, families fostering through DHHR would be paid at least $900 per month per child placed in their home, or about $30 a day — an increase of about $300 per month. The reimbursement rate for kinship families would be raised to an equivalent amount.
The state’s share of the cost was estimated to be about $16.9 million.
All that was pulled from the bill in the Senate.
The newly-shaped version of the bill says the state Department of Health and Human Resources must expand a tiered system that provides more financial support for families who take in children considered more challenging.
The Senate version of the bill allocates $4 million to do that.
And, DHHR would have to create a pilot program to raise state payments to kinship parents — family members who haven’t gone through the certification process to be foster parents.
Jeremiah Samples, the deputy director for DHHR, testified that the agency wants the tiered system to try to encourage families to take in children who might otherwise wind up in an institution.
That would help the state keep those children in state and with families, he said, while also averting the higher costs of institutionalization.
“If we can get those children out of institutional care into a family setting on a permanent basis then we may have savings to allow us to absorb the capitalization of this effort,” Samples said, meaning the savings could help raise the financial support of foster families overall.
And, he pointed toward an additional $14.9 million reflected in each house’s budget that would also help support the foster care system.
Overall, “We are spending more on child welfare than the state of West Virginia ever has historically, by a significant margin,” Samples said.
Yet he acknowledged that what was passed out of the House provided more money.
“Whatever is allocated we would spend to the best of our abilities and be responsible as we possibly could,” Samples said.
Unger pressed him on that.
“You need the money or you don’t?”
Samples then concluded, “The department’s position is that a tiered model does allow us to build greater capacity than a flat increase.”
Senator Bill Ihlenfeld, D-Ohio, proposed an amendment on Wednesday night aimed at returning the financial support for families as originally envisioned by the House.
“This will bring more families into the foster care system,” Ihlenfeld said.
Senate Majority Leader Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha, argued against the amendment saying the state can’t afford all of its priorities. “What I’m concerned about is West Virginia does have a finite amount of dollars,” Takubo said.
The amendment was voted down along party lines.
The Senate Finance Committee also made some changes to the bill’s enumerated rights for foster children.
The House passed the bill with 27 stated rights for children. The Senate Judiciary Committee took out seven of those. And Senate Finance added one back in that gives children the right to maintain contact with previous caregivers and other important adults in their life.
In an interview prior to the meeting, Marissa Sanders of West Virginia Foster, Adoptive and Kinship Parents Network said the bill of rights has been her focus.
Sanders said she has been concerned that the bill has changed so much in the final few days before the end of the 60-day legislative session.
“The bottom line in all of these negotiations — and certainly from the foster parents’ perspective — is making sure that we have the support that we need to make sure the kids have the care that they need,” she said.
“It’s about the kids and making sure that their needs are met and they have better outcomes than we’ve sometimes seen happen.”
There’s still a big gap between what the House of Delegates envisioned and what the Senate is now on the verge of passing. Sanders hopes to see agreement by the final day of the session.
“I really don’t want to see nothing. I would hate to see this bill die after the amount of work that’s been done on both sides of the Legislature this year,” she said.
“This is an issue that has a lot of focus right now. It’s a crisis. We have the highest rate of removal and the highest rate of termination in the country, and we need to address those issues now.”