Ohio should be ashamed of its child protection funding
August 22, 2016
By Patty Harrelson, MSSA, LISW-S
Ohio Department of Job and Family Services spokesperson Angela Terez misrepresented facts about the state’s child protection funding in the recent article “Impact of Marcus Fiesel’s death reverberates 10 years later,” published in the Dayton Daily News.
This death, all deaths, are tragedies. Some, but not all, of the changes since this youngster’s death were helpful.
Many changes (changes to background checks, for example) were positive. But many others also added needless requirements to already stretched caseworkers and foster parents trying to do the critical job of helping keep kids safe.
This trend of burying our workers in more and more requirements continues to this day. Our employees spend a significant amount of time in front of a computer in the state’s case management system (SACWIS) and not nearly enough time face-to-face with families. This is ultimately a disservice to families and to children.
Ms. Terez stated an oft-heard line in Ohio: “Overall, Ohio spends more than $1 billion a year on child protective services programs.” This is misleading. This is political spin. Instead of giving real resources to our child protection system, they instead obfuscate the truth.
Ohio ranks 50th out of all 50 states in the state share of child protection in this country. Yes, we are dead last. This should shame us all. The governor’s office continues to kick this can, and our children, down the road. It doesn’t matter the political party since Ted Strickland did the same thing when he was in office.
For example, in Fiscal Year 2012, Ohio spent $ 1.3 billion on child welfare services. Unfortunately, the bulk of this came from local voters, county commissioners and the federal government, not the state government.
Local funds make up $810 million of this total and $443 million comes from the federal government. Just 6 percent ($86 million) came from the State of Ohio, including paying for state employees to monitor the work we do at the county level.
Child protection funding is complicated. We generally need funds (local and state) in order to leverage federal dollars. Between Fiscal Year 2008 and Fiscal Year 2013, Ohio cut Richland County Children Services $229,660 or 34 percent.
The real cost of this loss is at least of another $230,000 in federal funds we cannot leverage, or more than $450,000 in our funding.
This is nothing to be proud of. State officials also like to say Ohio is 5th overall for its spending on Social Services. However, this includes Medicaid spending. When that “Social Services” pie is sliced, child welfare spending for kids who are abused/neglected still comes out to 50th, not 5th.
Marcus Fiesel’s death was no doubt a tragedy, but it did lead to improvements in our system. Unfortunately, funding is ultimately not one of them.
(Patty Harrelson is the executive director of Richland County Children Services.)
