Georgia’s child welfare system remains shaken after projected $85.7 million budget shortfall

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s child welfare system spiraled into crisis as the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services faced a whopping $85.7 million projected shortfall.

With Candice Broce, commissioner of the Department of Human Services and director of the child welfare agency it oversees, taking a number of cost-saving measures in November, it’s meant fewer visits between children and parents needed for family reunification, less time for aides to spend helping foster parents care for children with complex needs and juvenile court dates needing to be postponed when children have no transportation to get there.

“I’m just stuck. I’m stressed out. Emotionally, I’m exhausted,” said Pamela Bruce, who said her foster son “can’t grow in survival mode” and is also terrified she’ll surrender him back to the state as services dwindle.

Georgia lawmakers voted to backfill the budget gap, but families have already lost months of services and delays may last. Some lawmakers see the influx of cash as a Band-Aid and want an audit to determine why the system blew up.

Although experts say the projected deficit was an outlier in size, Georgia’s child welfare agency is not the only one struggling. One of the issues stressing Georgia’s system — an unpredictable influx of children with acute behavioral challenges — is a problem nationwide. Broce has been applauded for reducing the number of complex needs kids living in hotels, a troublesome practice many states use as a remedy. Finding places and people to care for children with such high needs is expensive.

To try to manage the deficit, which observers say could have resulted from a plethora of causes, Broce, a longtime ally of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, has terminated contracts with service providers she said weren’t performing well and in November required contracted services to first get state approval. Providers, families, lawyers, lawmakers, placement agencies and others across the state say few service referrals are being made and describe a system that slowed drastically.

“Every day that a family or kid is not receiving the kinds of support that they need, the situation only compounds,” said Ann Flagg, director of the Office of Family Assistance for the National Association of Counties, an advocacy group, and former member of the Biden administration.

Broce said in a statement to The Associated Press that requests for services “are approved within hours unless we ask for more information.” Contracted services include providers that offer transportation, counseling, assessments, behavior aides and more.

The child welfare agency is a critical lifeline for children in crisis. It’s part of larger state Department of Human services, which is budgeted to spend $1.06 billion in state money this year. It’s tasked with finding ways to protect children, heal their families if possible and then find ways to reunify them. The state’s Division of Family and Children Services employs about 7,500 staff.

At a legislative hearing, she said the agency doesn’t have enough resources to deal with the “magnitude” of behavior and mental health services needed for the kids that enter their care. To tighten the budget, she said she tried to only limit services that are duplicative, unnecessary or could be paid for by the state-federal Medicaid health insurance program.

“I am being forced to make decisions that nobody wants to make,” Broce told lawmakers.

Even after those cost-cutting moves, the projected deficit remained at just below $49 million.

Services have slowed

“How in the world are we supposed to reunify the families if we don’t have services in place?” family attorney Jessica Hall said.

Broce said in her statement that it’s possible requests “are not being escalated to the State Office for review.”

Bruce’s foster son wrote to his case worker that he developed a “brotherly relationship” with his behavior aide, something the teenager never had before as he bounced around homes. That relationship ended after the behavior aide’s services were no longer funded this past fall.

Missing in-person school with his friends when he had no transportation put a “toll on my mind,” the son wrote. He also noticed the toll on Bruce — she struggles to pay bills now that she covers Ubers for him to see family and stays home to care for him. She’s set on keeping him out of a group home.

Broce said the agency tapers services such as behavior aides for potentially self-sufficient teenagers with judicial involvement. She also said she is trying to avoid “cookie cutter” case plans that aren’t tailored to individual family needs.

Brittney Kleuger, CEO of Family Menders, which offers services such as transportation, counseling and behavior aides in northwest Georgia, said at a recent hearing that her agency received 80 to 100 referrals each week before the November process change. Now, they receive fewer than 10 each week.

On a phone call with DFCS, providers questioned Broce’s claims that services are being approved quickly and asked whether DFCS will still contract with them. Kristen Toliver, the agency’s director of delivered services, said “the approval process will look different” going forward but was loosened for some services.

A web of causes

The division has lost more than 800 beds to place children since 2019, and there is a dearth of available spots at psychiatric facilities, Broce has said. Transportation and behavior aides are expensive, she said. Broce has said she’s also working to reduce how often the division pays for services Medicaid should cover.

Broce has had longstanding conflict with judges, who she says often ask for unnecessary services or removals that drive up costs. Judge Nhan-Ai Simms, who testified to lawmakers in 2023 that Broce asked judges to violate state law by keeping some children with mental and behavioral problems inappropriately locked in juvenile detention centers, disagrees.

“The idea that courts are ordering above and beyond what DFCS has recommended, I think those cases are very few and far between,” Simms said.

Changes to federal law made it harder for Georgia and other states to use federal child welfare funds.

“The budget instability that we see here to me is just signaling this insufficient long-term fiscal strategy,” said Melissa Carter, executive director of the Barton Child Law and Policy Center at Emory University, adding that the state should invest more in keeping families together to draw federal funds.

Several lawmakers aren’t satisfied with Broce’s explanations.

“I’ve been in the budget world a long time, and I’ve never seen a deficit like this,” said state Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, a Democrat. “I don’t think we can blame the providers for that. I think that’s a management issue.”

Juanita Stedman, former juvenile court judge and executive director of Together Georgia, disputes the idea that the shortfall is Broce’s fault.

“Historically, we have not paid for the complexity of the kids,” she said.

Whatever the causes are, Bruce worries the deficit could explode again. She said she’s never felt so unsupported by DFCS in her two and a half years fostering kids, but what really broke her heart was seeing her foster son miss seeing his family more often.

“My visits are very important to me because I really love my family,” he wrote.

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Kramon is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.