Gutted foster care bill not enough for struggling system

Since when was the solution to a crisis to take money away from fixing the problem?
Apparently, the state Senate thinks the best way to handle our foster care crisis is to cut proposed funding. HB 4092 — which established foster children’s and foster parents’/kinship’s bills of rights and increased the per diem, or daily rate, to $30 a day — initially put funding at a $16.9 million state contribution. Yes, that is a lot of money. But we have roughly 7,000 kids in the system and caring for them isn’t cheap.
Senate Judiciary cut the original funding to $4 million, overstepping by drastically altering the financial aspects of the bill before it even got to Senate Finance. And then Senate Finance only nominally increased that amount to $4.9 million. Twice, amendments to restore the full funding failed along party lines.
And what does this get us? An expanded tier system with no per diem increase.
Right now, only four agencies statewide use a tiered foster care system. The tiers, or levels, are used to categorize foster children based on their behavioral and mental health needs, and the amount of money a foster family or kinship placement receives increases with the levels.
Expanding the tier system statewide is an excellent idea, but it’s like putting a BAND-AID on a bullet wound — it won’t save our struggling system.
An expanded tier system will provide additional support for families who take in Level 2 or Level 3 children. These are kids of any age who exhibit significant indicators of trauma/behavioral or emotional issues, according the DHHR. But this doesn’t benefit Tier 1 homes (traditional foster care).
The per diem increase in the original HB 4092 could encourage people to become foster parents and, specifically, to take in older children, which is a continuing concern not solved by the tier system. Despite the stereotypes, older kids are not automatically more challenging. There can be a Level 3 2-year-old and a Level 1 16-year-old. Of course, the family taking care of the Level 3 toddler should get extra help, which the tier system provides, but the teenager is going to have higher base expenses. That is why the per diem increase is essential.
Now, if the compromise is to nix the per diem and, instead, offer incentives for taking in older kids to offset the higher costs, then so be it. Either way — per diem increase across the board or incentives — the Legislature is going to have to cough up some more money.
Today, the Senate-gutted HB 4092 should be on third reading and will likely pass as is. The House has already amended and passed a state budget allocating $17 million for foster care. Each will have to be reviewed, revised and then accepted by the opposite chamber before midnight Saturday.
We’ll just have to see who is fighting for West Virginia’s children.