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By John Saros
Published on Friday, Jul 03, 2009
Although the Beacon Journal's June 23 editorial, ''Out of balance,'' did an excellent job outlining how Gov. Strickland's ''framework'' for the state budget ''neglects priorities and asks too much of the disadvantaged,'' I don't believe it went nearly far enough in sharing how the proposed budget will critically affect the 88 child welfare agencies across the state, including Summit County Children Services.
Among the many harmful measures proposed by the governor to help offset the projected $3.2 billion budget deficit are millions in cuts in the allocation of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families funds to child protection agencies statewide. Additionally, there are cuts in state funding of child protection, adoption assistance and mental health, and total elimination of state support for children in kinship settings — a very successful alternative to foster care. The Public Children Services Association estimates that nearly 20 percent of the caseworkers statewide will be cut through attrition or layoffs.
And this on top of the fact that Ohio is near or at the bottom of the list of the 50 states in state support of child protection services. Could it get worse? Well, apparently it can.
The governor proposes the near elimination of the Help Me Grow program, which is the key to helping disadvantaged children from birth to 3 years old. Locally, we are already experiencing major cuts in mentoring programs for adolescents and are likely to have to do with little or nothing in our family-stability services.
Under Strickland's proposal, we would also see the loss of support services we use to surround the children and our families with the help they need in the face of domestic violence, mental health and drug issues that are seemingly intractable. These services are essential to keep children in their own homes with birth families.
As mentioned above, we are currently confronted with cuts in our direct state subsidies for child protection and adoption assistance. All of these cuts total well in excess of $1 million per year in lost services to children and families.
Additional cuts begin in 2011 with the loss of the tangible personal property tax revenues, which total nearly $3 million during the past three years of the current levy period. Is there no regard whatsoever in the so-called capital of our state for the most vulnerable citizens of our state?
And then there is the spending side of the coin. Our system is carefully balanced and integrated, and without these support services more children will need to be taken into foster care. But this matters little to state government because placements are paid for by the federal government and local taxpayers. In other words, this amounts to a cost shift to the local level, where the responsibility for matching funds lies together with an increase in those local costs.
Gov. Ted Strickland, Senate President Bill Harris, Speaker Armond Budish and Rep. Vern Sykes have, because of the oaths of office they took, the obligation to protect the most vulnerable of us all — the children, the elderly, the disabled and the hungry.
What they are doing is a profound violation of the oaths they took ''under God.'' The only answer to this very serious situation is for our elected officials to work together, put their party affiliations and political aspirations on the back burner, and creatively and courageously raise sufficient new revenues.
Only through such decisive action can our elected representatives truly demonstrate that caring for the most vulnerable among us — especially children and families — is a priority to them and that they deserve our vote in November 2010.
Saros is the executive director of Summit County Children Services.
Although the Beacon Journal's June 23 editorial, ''Out of balance,'' did an excellent job outlining how Gov. Strickland's ''framework'' for the state budget ''neglects priorities and asks too much of the disadvantaged,'' I don't believe it went nearly far enough in sharing how the proposed budget will critically affect the 88 child welfare agencies across the state, including Summit County Children Services.
Get the full article here.
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