By Steven Allen Adams, Parkersburg News and Sentinel
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday changed the funding components of the foster care bill from the House, causing Democrats in the Senate Finance Committee to find ways to re-insert the provisions.
Judiciary amended House Bill 4092, a bill designed to address the ballooning foster care and kinship care system in West Virginia.
HB 4092, as sent over from the House, would create the foster children’s bill of rights and the foster parents and kinship bill of rights. The bill places duties and responsibilities upon foster parents, including not violating the rights of the foster child and providing all children placed in their care with appropriate food, clothing, shelter, supervision, medical attention and educational needs.
The bill also sets a reasonable and prudent parent standard, which gives foster parents authority to make daily decisions regarding a foster child’s extracurricular activities, including sports, arts and other activities. Violation of any of these rights would be investigated by the foster care ombudsman.
The House bill also updated payment rates. Child placement agencies will be paid a rate of $75 per day, per child, with foster parents receiving at least 40 percent of the rate, or a minimum of $30 per day. For kinship parents, at least $900 per month per child is set. The fiscal note attached to the bill was nearly $17 million for the increased reimbursement rates.
The Judiciary changes removes the new funding rates for foster and kinship families. It includes a $1,000 payment to child placement agencies for each completed adoption and requires the rate paid by placement agencies to foster parents to be evaluated every two years. …
