Budget cuts could thin the ranks of foster parents

State budget squeeze spurs county to propose lower stipends for families

Steve Marcus

Jeanmarie Schirling has fostered about 200 children over the past 11 years. She says foster parents in Clark County who work with a nonprofit agency benefit from having “another set of eyes and ears” to help handle problems.

By Joe Schoenmann (contact)

Friday, Oct. 30, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Gains in child protection threatened (5-7-2009)
County Commission chairman rejecting child welfare cuts (11-19-2008)

Having taken in some 200 foster children over the past 11 years, Jeanmarie Schirling knows the rewards of providing a safe home and some measure of joy to children who have known so little happiness.

But being a foster parent is not easy. It takes a big investment to do it well. Foster children can require extra supervision and attention and often have medical and psychological needs. And taking care of any child, of course, also entails various expenses — clothes, food, toys.

Schirling says some people will either give up being foster parents or not give it a try if the pay and assistance offered are cut.

The Legislature’s budget tightening resulted in a 42 percent cut in funding that affects a particular group of foster homes — the 100 or so that take in sibling groups and rely on private nonprofit agencies to provide training, home visits, school consultation, tutoring, mentoring and other help to those foster parents and children.

Tom Morton, director of Clark County Family Services, said those private groups became part of the county’s safety net a few years ago, when the county’s Child Haven shelter was overcrowded and the county faced threats of lawsuits over it.

Relatively quickly, he said, Child Haven’s numbers decreased. As a result money budgeted for Child Haven was reallocated for other foster care needs. That included payments to the agencies — there are about seven in Clark County — to help with particularly needy children or sibling groups of foster children.

But because the Legislature has cut money that would have supported Child Haven, Family Services is set to reduce its payments to those agencies.

Last week, Morton’s department presented county commissioners with a plan to decrease the stipend paid to the agencies from $65 per child per day to $40. Rough estimates are that about half of that money goes to the foster homes.

Jennifer Bevacqua, division director for one of those agencies, Olive Crest, pleaded with the commission not to reduce the stipends.

“For three years, no one has disputed we have had great outcomes for children,” Bevacqua said, speaking on behalf of the other agencies. “We’ve set a standard and expectation of care and now they’re saying, ‘You’ve done such a great job, here’s the cut.’ We don’t want to go backward.”

Commissioners agreed. They told county staff to find $240,000 to cover the Family Services Department’s payments retroactively from Oct. 1 through the end of November. The hope is that by the end of November, the county will be able to persuade the state’s Interim Finance Committee to come up with roughly $1.5 million to $2 million needed to maintain the $65 per child stipend paid to the agencies.

Morton has a problem with that.

He notes that the agencies keep a certain amount, then pay $35 to $40 for each foster child each day. He added, however, that foster parents who work directly with Clark County caseworkers, and take in the same types of children handled by the agencies, get just $22 to $24 per child.

“It’s a matter of fairness,” he said.

Anita Stephens, 41, who has three sibling foster children, works directly with the county. She doesn’t think “it makes sense” that she is paid less than foster parents who work with an agency. The agencies “add extra layers,” but she’s not sure that means they provide better service.

“If you get a good caseworker you’ll get good help, but that can be found in the Department of Family Services as well as the agencies,” she said.

Bevacqua said foster parents appreciate the extra attention agencies provide. Olive Crest caseworkers, for example, visit their foster homes once a week, while county caseworkers make visits about once a month, Bevacqua said.

“These parents need that support and training and a lot of other things that we do,” she said.

Schirling, reached Thursday on her way to court to testify in a case involving the birthparent of one of her foster children, said she’d like to work with an agency “because there’s always another set of ears and eyes. If there are any issues, they are there to help.”

Morton said that while he has “always been in favor of public-private partnerships, it has to be done at a rate the state and the county can afford. We were able to pay those rates during a crisis time. It’s not a crisis time right now.”

Morton sees another possible solution down the road. In about a year, his department will be ready to assume many of the responsibilities that the seven foster agencies handle today.

And if the state’s Interim Finance Committee doesn’t grant Family Service more money, those parents can “either absorb the cut or they return the children and say ‘We’ll no longer care for them at that rate.’

“But I’d like to believe that these parents are doing this out of care and concern for children rather than economic interests.”

Foster mom Schirling says the one benefit of lowering the payments would be if “it weeds out those who are only in it for the money.”

Discussion: 10 comments so far…

By geezelouise

10/30/09 at 6:49 a.m.

Suggest removal

The state or county governments don't pay anything to family members who take in a child unless they are over 62 years old.

There are already plenty of us who are doing it for the love of the child and not the money.

Didn't see that mentioned in the article at all.
By rejco100

10/30/09 at 6:59 a.m.

Suggest removal

Foster babies, as little as six months old, are being AUTOMATICALLY diagnosed as MENTALLY ILL and state funds are TAPPED to "TREAT" them. And what is "TREATMENT"? Five minutes with a Psycho-Wacko and handfuls of brain-frying meds that will guarantee the kid turns out to be a PSYCHOTIC ZOMBIE and provides state paid Psycho-Wackos jobs for life!
By rejco100

10/30/09 at 7:02 a.m.

Suggest removal

There is NOTHING WRONG with the Foster Children; it's the Parents and the System that are seriously messed up!
By KillerB

10/30/09 at 7:44 a.m.

Suggest removal

geezlouise, rejco100 -- all excellent points so far.

I've always taken exception to these keepers being referred to as "parents." They have no parental rights despite all the window dressing government gives them. The truth is usually about what it is with most government actions against the people -- filthy lucre.

I've followed several cases where children were stolen from their families, including termination of parental rights. Go to court on some of these cases -- you'll see a whole lot of attorneys, caseworkers and therapists, all dipping their snouts in the trough of a family's despair. And that includes an attorney "representing" the kids, usually parroting whatever the state wants. Especially when they're too young to be in court to say what they really want. What a cesspool.

And it's all done in our name.
By nevadaappleslices

10/30/09 at 8:33 a.m.

Suggest removal

I just read an article in the LasVegas Sun the other day that illegal immigrants are collecting welfare for their anchor babies ... and yet our own American children that are in foster care are being skimped on. That is pathetic!
By KillerB

10/30/09 at 9:14 a.m.

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"...and yet our own American children that are in foster care are being skimped on."

nevadaappleslices -- many of those kids would not be "skimped on" if they were left alone with their own families.
By discosis

10/30/09 at 10:45 a.m.

Suggest removal

There are way too many foster parents in Clark County who are in it for the money. Anyone familiar with the situation knows this. Further, foster kids often complain that the money paid to their foster parents to care for them is disproportionately spent on the foster parents' biological kids instead.

I guess what boggles the mind the most is that CPS removes children from their parents often due to poverty, and then places the kids with foster parents and pays the foster parents to care for them. Why not just give more assistance to the biological family unit? It's class warfare, that's why.
By rejco100

10/30/09 at 11:24 a.m.

Suggest removal

discosis, If the system brough the originating Foster Child's families above the poverty line and they become truly self-sufficient then THOUSANDS & THOUSANDS of HIGHLY PAID Social Workers, Case Workers, Counselors, Therapists, Psycho-Wackos, "Life Skills" Teachers, Anger Managenment Teachers, Drug Treatment Providers, Parenting Skills Teachers, Food Stamp workers, Probation & Parole Officers WOULD BE OUT OF JOBS; THAT WON'T EVER BE ALLOWED TO HAPPEN!!!!!
By crazyinvegas

11/3/09 at 7:58 a.m.

Suggest removal

As A fosterparent in Clark County, I agree with many of the points others have brought up, but they are not absolutes. Not everyone is doing it for the money, Not All children should be left at home. Not ALL county workers are bad. SOme of us really are trying to help those childfren who need to be in a safer environment for a time. Drugs is really the problem here. In most of the 37 cases I have had over the years, drugs is the problem. These children are affected in so many ways by the irresponsible choices of the adults in their lives. We as foster parents have to pick up the pieces and help them rebuild their lives . How about you not judge until you have walked in our shoes. Do you have a crystal ball to be able to tell if that child will be harmed or not? neither do they.