Child Welfare Reforms

Child welfare services - out-of-home placements - funding - appropriation. The act addresses numerous reforms to the funding structure for the state's child welfare services, including:

• Clarifying the types of child welfare services that must be available and provided, as necessary and appropriate, by county departments of human or social services (county departments);
• Eliminating the option for county departments to maintain unspent general fund money from the child welfare services block allocation if they participate in the collaborative management program or the integrated care management program;
• Adding a statutory definition of and citation to the federal "Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018";
• Creating a program in the child welfare system for residential out-of-home placements for children and youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities;
• Changing the number of and process for appointments to the child welfare allocations committee;
• Requiring the development of a child welfare system funding model;
• Increasing the percentage that counties are reimbursed by the state for adoption and relative guardianship subsidies from 80% to 90%;
• Formalizing the input process of the child welfare allocations committee;
• Allowing the department of human services (state department) to submit supplemental budget requests for increases in out-of-home placement provider rates and adoption and relative guardianship expenditures;
• Modifying language concerning negotiations between county departments and providers for out-of-home placement rates;
• Requiring capacity evaluations in counties or regions;
• Requiring the state department to perform an analysis and cost projections to determine the fiscal impact on the state for changes in federal reimbursement rates for child welfare expenditures that result from the federal "Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018";
• Modifying the close-out process for child welfare expenditures;
• Creating a child welfare prevention and intervention services cash fund into which unspent general fund money allocated to county departments through block allocations are transferred for sustainability of state-approved prevention and intervention programs and services; and
• Creating the delivery of child welfare services task force.

The act reduces appropriations made in the general appropriations act and makes new appropriations to the department of human services for the division of child welfare.

(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)