Deseret News, Monday, July 21, 2003

Foster-care board hurting

Halved budget means cuts in staff and cases

By James Thalman
Deseret Morning News

The state program that reviews individual foster care cases will survive a more than 50 percent budget cut by reducing paid staff and the number of cases it will look into during the next fiscal year.

Administrators say having half the money and reduced services are a lot better than nothing, which is what the Foster Care Citizens Review Board had until the last day of the Legislature in March. Some lawmakers wanted all $650,000 in state funds for this year removed from the board, but $300,000 was ultimately approved in the final budget for 2003-04.

The push to drop the funding wasn't just an effort to balance an extremely tight budget. Several lawmakers believe the board is an unnecessary duplication of effort and therefore a waste of money because the courts and the state Division of Child and Family Services already conduct foster care reviews.

Foster care in Utah remains a closely scrutinized program because of the state's abysmal track record with it before a class-action lawsuit filed about 10 years ago. The suit claimed the state wasn't properly caring for children in state custody and was actually endangering them. Utah has made substantial improvements in the safety level of children, but it remains under federal court purview until several more system-wide policies and practice improvements are made.

Review board members say they have been an integral part of those improvements and that efforts to drop the board would erode the progress that has been made.

The mostly volunteer network of 39 case review boards statewide has had paid staff reduced to 12 from 22 and has consolidated outlying administrative offices into one located in Salt Lake. The board has 358 volunteers now compared to 430 a year ago. About 900 case reviews will be conducted in the new fiscal year, about half the number conducted last year. There are about 2,000 children in state custody at any given time in Utah. The board has had a goal of reviewing every child's case every year.

The court and DCFS reviews are more an assessment of the overall internal activities, said board director Patricia Worthington. "The review board doesn't overlap. It deals directly with the children and foster parents involved and how well things are working on the front line."

Children and parents in foster care know it, she said, "but not everyone is buying into that."

Whether those who don't buy in will change their minds could hinge on what is found in a study of the review board activities about to get under way by Utah Children, the statewide research and advocacy group.

DCFS Director Richard Anderson said he is convinced the citizens review board has made a difference. He said further efforts to cut it harms one of the most effective volunteer organizations in the state.

"People on the board are not only finding out what's really going on in the foster care system that they've heard only mostly bad things about, many of them go on to become more involved and to even adopt some of these kids," Anderson said.

E-MAIL: jthalman@desnews.com