Foster parents urged state legislators Tuesday to support a bill that would increase their monthly reimbursement checks for the first time since 1990.
Supporters of Senate Bill 59 said the state’s reimbursement rate of $529 per month per child — roughly $17 per day — does not cover all the child’s expenses, and that the added cost of housing a foster child has turned qualified families away from the system.
"Families that generally want to provide this care are telling workers that they cannot afford to take on a foster child because of the amount that they themselves would have to contribute to the care," said Judith Clark, executive director of Hawaii Youth Services Network. "The families are not becoming foster families for the sake of getting the money. The issue is that the funds provided do not cover the actual costs of caring for the child."
The Senate Committee on Human Services placed a monthly reimbursement increase of $75 in the bill and voted to advance it to the Ways and Means Committee.
State Department of Human Services Director Patricia McManaman testified that while the department supports the intent of the bill, it has concerns regarding its fiscal impact because an increase of $75 per month would cost the state an estimated $5.3 million that is not accounted for in the governor’s budget plan.
"If the Legislature were to appropriate additional funds, we would be happy to implement that and provide greater resources to our support families," McManaman said after the hearing.
According to a study published in 2007 by Children’s Rights, a New York-based national advocacy organization, Hawaii needed to increase its foster parent reimbursement payments by 19 percent for toddlers, 36 percent for school-age children and 49 percent for teenagers to adequately cover basic care costs.
Hawaii reimburses all foster parents equally, regardless of the age of the children being cared for.
Kaui Keola of Halawa Heights, who has been a foster parent for 13 years, testified that she pays a discounted rate of $450 per month to send her 2-year-old foster child to a special-needs school, which leaves $79 for expenses such as diapers, wipes and formula.
"It takes a village to raise these children, especially children in foster care, and I ask you to be part of our village and support these children," Keola told lawmakers.
In 2011 a federal judge made California immediately raise its foster reimbursement rates after the state spent 2½ years not complying with an earlier ruling that the rates were inadequate, according to a San Francisco Chronicle story.
At the time, California was paying foster families $446 a month for children up to 4 years old and $627 for youth ages 15 to 19, the article said, and there had not been a major increase in rates since 1991. The state was ordered to pay foster families $609 a month for children up to 4 years old and $761 for 15- to 19-year-olds, with increases each year.
Judith Wilhoite, a family advocate for the It Takes an ‘Ohana program of Family Programs Hawaii, said she called the Hawaii State Data Center and found out that a basket of food items in 1990 — the last year reimbursements were raised — cost $24.71, while the same basket of food cost $53.75 in 2011.
"That’s over a 100 percent increase, yet the reimbursement rate has not budged 1 percent," she said. "So it (the current rate) is woefully inadequate."
Evelyn Souza of Makakilo, a foster parent for more than 20 years, said people don’t often consider the additional monetary and emotional costs associated with fostering children.
"We have begun to take in teenagers, and most of these teenagers come with a lot of problems," Souza said. "The problems manifest themselves in things getting broken in the house; we have walls that have had holes in them. All of these things are incurred, and it’s part of the process."
Souza said she finds it difficult to give her foster children more than just the bare minimum. "We want these children to know that they’re just as good as the next kid next to them, but we can’t do it with what we get," she said. "We know, the general public knows, that you can find this money. It’s more than that: You have to find this money."
A bill to increase foster family reimbursements has also been introduced in the House, and legislators have introduced bills to increase the voluntary foster care age to 21 and allow foster children attending a higher-education institution full time to stay in the system until they’re 23.
