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Balancing the Budget on the Backs of Poor, Abused and Neglected Children Cannot be the Answer
We are writing on behalf of Iowa’s abused and neglected children and those agencies that serve them to oppose the drastic cuts to provider rates being proposed to the child and family services system. While we certainly understand the depth of the state’s fiscal problems, cuts of this magnitude would likely make the state’s situation worse, and would cause immeasurable harm to innocent dependent children. The negative impacts on individual children, communities, and the economy if these cuts are adopted would simply be too great. From both a human and economic perspective, we urge you to reject the provider rate cuts.
The Department of Human Services proposes a 5% rate reduction to remedial service providers, Psychiatric Mental Institution for Children (PMIC), the Preparation for Adult Living (PAL) program, the family foster care recruitment and retention program, emergency shelter services, group foster care and the Supervised Apartment Living (SAL) program. A reduction of this magnitude eliminates the safety net for abused and neglected children.
It also is very important to acknowledge that the DHS recommendations mean a reduction in the number of children and families that will receive services. There is no reasonable way that quality services can be provided to the same number of recipients for less money.
These cuts would deal a devastating blow to abused and neglected children and the dedicated people who seek to help them, reversing the strides made in recent years and resulting in unprotected children, fewer quality caregivers, and fewer trained social workers.
If these cuts are enacted, lawmakers and the public should expect to see a system that merely responds to tragedies, rather than helping to prevent them.
This blow would come at a time when the latest financial crisis is creating serious funding implications for nonprofit providers of family and children’s services. The ripple effect of the financial and economic crisis is creating the perfect storm of impacts on the nonprofit providers of child and family services. Not only is corporate giving down, but the middle class is shrinking; therefore, individual giving is also down, adding to the tight funding situation for nonprofits. And if a non-profit has a foundation, assets have dropped across the board by 28%.
It is hard to imagine the government expecting construction companies to raise funds from donors to build roads, but that is the system in place for serving children and families and the economic conditions are eroding that system.
The proposal to the emergency shelters according to published DHS data has the potential of closing 20-30 % of shelters, thereby, reducing the safety net for Iowa’s Children. We are also very concerned with the proposal to restructure Psychiatric Medical Institutions for Children and Remedial Services for children under the Iowa Plan. De-linking services from the Child and Family Service system will cause a further reduction in services to children as the contractor of the Iowa Plan (Magellan) does not have an obligation to “honor” the agreement of the payment system to remedial providers in group foster care.
The Des Moines Register noted that the Governor’s office disagreed with suggestions to slash services to children. We urge you to act on those words and protect the poor, abused and neglected children of Iowa and not balance the budget with the proposed Department of Human Services Recommendations.
Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.
Kristie Oliver, Executive Director
Coalition for Family and Children's Services in Iowa
1111 9th Street, Suite 235
Des Moines, IA 50314
515-244-0074
www.iachild.org
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