FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - Some prominent family court judges and adoption attorneys say the best way to improve the state’s struggling adoption and foster care system is to hire more social workers, putting them at odds with Republican leaders who have vowed to fix the problem without spending more money.
“Social workers that have 40 families on their caseloads, that is a time bomb looking for a place to go off,” Bullitt County Family Court Judge Elise Spainhour told a panel of state representatives on Tuesday during their first of several meetings to come up with legislation to overhaul the system. “It’s an inhuman standard that we have set on social workers.”
Kentucky has about 8,000 children in foster care statewide. The latest federal review of Kentucky’s child-welfare system found the state did not meet any of the government standards, including ones requiring that “children are, first and foremost, protected from abuse and neglect.”
The state has approximately 1,900 front line social workers, and they average about 29 cases per person, according to Doug Hogan, spokesman for the Cabinet for Health and Family Services.
Republican Gov. Matt Bevin has vowed to overhaul the system, a personal issue for him and his wife who tried and failed to adopt an 11-year-old girl from the state’s foster care system eight years ago. Bevin gave social workers a 7.63 percent raise last year in his first spending plan. But he told The Associated Press in a recent interview his plan to overhaul the child welfare system won’t include a significant increase in state spending.
“You ask anybody who is inside who is part of the bureaucracy and the answer is always we need more money, always,” Bevin said. “We don’t need more money. We need to use the money wisely.”
However, earlier this month Bevin awarded a $240,000 contract to a Southern Baptist professor to assess the state’s system and come up with a plan to fix it.
Kentucky House Speaker Jeff Hoover has appointed a bipartisan panel of lawmakers to come up with legislation for lawmakers to consider when they return to work in January. The panel includes a pair of adoptive parents, Republican state Rep. David Meade and Democratic state Rep. Jeffrey Donohue, along with Republican state Rep. Lynn Bechler, a former foster parent.
Bevin and other Republican leaders have been adamant that they can fix the system without a significant increase in spending. Bevin’s office predicts the state will have a $113 million shortfall in the fiscal year that ends June 30. And Monday, some independent consultants said the state would need to spend an additional $700 million a year in order to keep its beleaguered public pension systems solvent.
“What we are primarily focusing on right now is what can we do, legislatively, that we don’t have to get into the budget,” Meade said.
Other ideas included shortening some state-mandated timelines and reducing the amount of paperwork required for prospective parents. Mitch Charney, a Louisville attorney who specializes in family law, complained people who want to become foster parents have to go through exhaustive and expensive background checks. Then when they try to adopt those children, they have to do it all over again, he said.
Lawmakers will meet again next month. Democratic state Rep. Joni Jenkins said the group has a lot of work in front of them.
“I think we are beginning to learn what we don’t know, and that’s always real important,” she said.
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