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Foster ruling to cost state millions A federal judge orders back payments for homes where kids live with relatives.



 
 
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Old February 13th 04, 05:41 PM
wexwimpy
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Default 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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