CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

Child welfare providers object to proposed Health and Human Services cuts

Star-Herald - 3/16/2017

LINCOLN - When Susan Pickel became a foster parent, she found that the State Department of Health and Human Services didn't have the time or resources to help her family.

Only a handful of caseworkers, she said, were not burned out by their already-heavy caseloads.

So she turned to Better Living Counseling Services, a Lincoln-based provider of child welfare-related services.

"I don't know what we would've done without them," she told members of the Legislature's Appropriations Committee.

Pickel and others gathered Tuesday at the State Capitol to sound off about cuts to HHS proposed by Gov. Pete Ricketts and supported by department officials. Tuesday was the second of two days of public hearings set aside on the budget for the state's largest agency.

Doug Weinberg, the director of children and family services for HHS, argued that the administration's budget reflects the realities of the state's current economic situation.

The proposed cuts are in response to a sizable projected state budget gap for the period ending June 30, 2019.

Weinberg said Ricketts' budget would continue "strategic and priority services" that further the agency's mission, while building upon the governor's priorities of creating what he describes as a more effective, efficient and customer-focused government.

Ricketts is proposing to cut the agency's budget $31.5 million below current levels in the fiscal year that starts July 1, and then $9.8 million from current levels the following fiscal year.

The Appropriations Committee is proposing to increase the agency's budget $4 million in the first year of the two-year budget cycle and $29.5 million in the second year. The committee's proposal is $74.8 million higher than the governor's largely because it did not cut provider rates as much.

The governor is recommending 2.2 percent cuts to both child welfare and developmental disabilities provider rates, while the committee's plan calls for a 1 percent increase to each. Ricketts is recommending a 2 percent cut in state appropriations to providers of behavioral health regions. The committee has proposed a 1 percent increase.

Courtney Miller, director of the HHS developmental disabilities division, defended the governor's cuts by noting that providers of developmental disability services received a 2.25 percent increase to their rates the past two years.

But Gering State Sen. John Stinner, who chairs the Appropriations Committee, said he hears from providers that they're "barely breaking even."

The administration's budget was supported by a single proponent, while it drew numerous opponents.

Community-based providers testified that the cuts would result in reduced services, and raised concerns about the governor's proposal to bring certain services in-house to HHS, where caseloads are higher than among private agencies.

Jim Blue, president and CEO of Lincoln child welfare provider Cedars, said he's grateful for the committee's 1 percent increase in provider rates, but that the proposal is "functionally going backwards" because it doesn't account for increased costs, including cost-of-living increases.

Blue also objected to the governor's plan to shift parenting support services for kinship foster families from child-placing agencies to HHS staff.

The governor's plan would cut $4.5 million from such services in each year of the two-year budget period, but that's partially offset by the hiring of 14 people within HHS. The net cut would amount to $3.8 million each year of the biennium.

"I have not yet found a way, mathematically, that adding government employees instead of working with the private sector ... saves us money," Blue said.

The committee's preliminary budget did not cut the funding.

Karen Authier, CEO of the Nebraska Children's Home Society, called Ricketts' plan to eliminate funding for Right Turn "short-sighted" and predicted it would result in added expenses.

Ricketts' plan would cut the $2 million annual contract for Right Turn, a program that supports families created through adoption and guardianship. The committee did not cut that funding.

Under the governor's plan, the department would take on adoption support services internally, Weinberg said. That would result in HHS adding more staff, though the department would pay for more employees with money shifted from other areas, he said.

emily.nohr@owh.com, 402-473-9581