FOSTER SYSTEM MAY LOSE FUNDS WITHOUT REFORM.

Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer

Without financing reforms, states could lose more than $600 million to help abused children, officials testified Monday at a legislative hearing on California's foster-care system.

Rob Geen, director of the Child Welfare Research Program at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., testified that California's $4.7 billion child protective system receives a disproportionate amount of federal funds compared to other states.

As a result, Geen said the budget reconciliation bill before Congress would cut more than $600 million over five years and proposed Medicaid changes may limit the use of these funds for foster children.

``Without reform, it appears that states will lose access to federal funds for child welfare services,'' Geen testified. ``California should be an active participant in federal child welfare financing reform discussions (next year).''

Geen spoke at the first hearing of the California Select Committee on Foster Care held at the state Junipero Building in downtown Los Angeles. The committee is chaired by Assemblywoman Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, who said she plans to make reforming of the state's dysfunctional foster care system the focus of her tenure in office.

The committee plans to look at changing how the system is funded to free up more of the money to help keep families together. The committee also plans to look at ways to better support relatives who care for abused children in the system, better address the needs of teens who age out of the system and improve court oversight.

In February 2004, David Sanders, director of Los Angeles County's Department of Children and Family Services, asked the federal government for permission to use $300 million of its $1.3 billion budget on services to help keep families together. But negotiations between the state and federal government have bogged down.

The request followed DCFS admissions in a series of Daily News stories in 2003 that half of the children in the system had been unnecessarily taken from their families and placed in more dangerous environments because of financial incentives in state and federal laws.

Sanders testified the DCFS has since sent thousands of children safely home, but those improvements are in jeopardy without the flexibility to use funds on services to help families be successful in safely raising their children.

``We have 30 percent fewer children in foster care than in 2002, children spend, on average, 30 percent shorter time in foster care and we have experienced a 30 percent reduction in abuse of children in (foster care),'' Sanders said. ``However, given the current funding streams and fiscal climate, we will have difficulty continuing these gains.''

Troy Anderson, [phone]

troy.anderson(at)dailynews.com