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Foster ruling to cost state millions A federal judge orders back payments for homes where kids live with relatives.
Foster ruling to cost state millions A federal judge orders back
payments for homes where kids live with relatives. By Denny Walsh -- Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 a.m. PST Thursday, February 12, 2004 In a ruling that will cost California and its 58 counties more than $80 million, a Sacramento federal judge has ordered the payment of unlawfully withheld foster care benefits for children living with relatives. The ruling applies to an estimated 18,000 foster children statewide removed by court order from parental homes and living primarily in the homes of grandparents. "This is a huge victory for the neediest among us," said Barbara Jones, a Legal Aid Foundation lawyer who pursued the matter on behalf of a Los Angeles woman acting as her grandson's foster parent. "No segment of society needs our help more than these children, most of whom have been abused, neglected or abandoned by their parents." On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. ordered payments in appropriate foster care cases that were active on or after March 3, 2003 - the date of an appellate ruling ruling - going back to Dec. 23, 1997, when the state submitted a plan rejected by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that made relatives eligible for foster care benefits. According to Damrell's 25-page order, the California Department of Social Services estimates that $30 million will have to be taken from the state general fund and another $42 million from county treasuries to cover the back payments. The federal government will be obligated to match those amounts. According to a court declaration from a department official, the counties also will have to underwrite more than $10 million in administrative costs to determine who is eligible. The judge gave the state agency 60 days to direct county welfare departments to find the beneficiaries. The file review must be completed within eight months, Damrell ordered. Enedina Rosales, the Los Angeles grandmother whose Legal Aid attorneys pursued the case after the state dropped it, was denied foster care benefits because the parental home from which her grandson was removed was not eligible for welfare benefits. The state challenged that federal requirement five years ago in a suit filed against Health and Human Services. Rosales later entered the suit on the side of the state. Her 5-month-old grandson was placed in her care after being removed from his parents' abusive home. Rosales had to quit her job to care for the baby, who suffered from respiratory ailments requiring frequent emergency treatment. She was denied foster care benefits because of the federal agency's interpretation of the law, and was forced to apply for regular welfare, which is less than foster care benefits. According to AARP, there are approximately 1.5 million foster homes like Rosales' throughout the nation. In support of her, the organization filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the district court in Sacramento and with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In the brief, the former American Association of Retired Persons said that even though "grandparents - primarily single, poor, African American grandmothers - have stepped in to rescue these children," many of them "are not in good health and, even if they are employed, have low-skilled, low-paying jobs." Foster care benefits "are essential for grandparents to be able to provide food, shelter and other necessities" such as health care, AARP said. The federal agency's interpretation "discourages kinship care providers who provide better care for these children." Damrell deferred to Health and Human Services' interpretation and threw the case out in 2000. The state did not appeal, but Rosales did, and the 9th Circuit reversed Damrell and sent the case back to him to decide the scope of relief for foster parents. Rosales and her attorneys then found themselves pitted against not only the federal agency but also the state, their former ally. Both governments argued strongly against retroactive relief, throwing up a multitude of legal reasons and insisting that it was unjust to burden them with the costs and logistics of going back more than six years. Larry Bolton, acting chief deputy director of the state Department of Social Services, said Wednesday there had been no decision on whether to appeal the retroactive element of the ruling. State Deputy Attorney General Frank Furtek had warned Damrell in an October brief that retroactive application of the appellate opinion would add to the state's budget woes and "the costs would be profound. The state has no current appropriation or authorization to make this additional payment, and the funds would need to be tapped from other state welfare funds." "Further," he said, "the administrative obstacles associated with identifying eligible recipients prior to April 2003 are monumental." But Damrell said he had to weigh all these problems against the "public interest in compensating foster care families who have been denied ... benefits to which they were entitled for six years." Jones sees trouble ahead. "The (Bush) administration chose not to appeal the 9th Circuit's opinion to the Supreme Court," Jones said. "Instead it is trying to use the budget to legislate these benefits out of existence." The Bush budget for fiscal 2005 proposes to amend the law so the benefits can be denied legally. The proposal would "leave foster children who live with relatives behind," Jones said in a reference to Bush's much-touted goal to "leave no child behind." Yolanda Arias, another Legal Aid Foundation lawyer representing Rosales, said the administration "has not given a good reason that justifies continuing a policy that hurts abused and neglected children and the relatives who care for them." http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/c...-9185108c.html Defend your civil liberties! Get information at http://www.aclu.org, become a member at http://www.aclu.org/join and get active at http://www.aclu.org/action. |
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