BILL REQ. #: H-4046.1
State of Washington | 62nd Legislature | 2012 Regular Session |
READ FIRST TIME 02/06/12.
AN ACT Relating to adoption support expenditures; adding new sections to chapter 74.13A RCW; adding a new section to chapter 71.36 RCW; and providing an expiration date.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:
NEW SECTION. Sec. 1 A new section is added to chapter 74.13A RCW
to read as follows:
The legislature finds that the current state adoption support
policy to encourage, within available funds, the adoption of certain
hard to place children, has expedited permanency for children who are
unable to reunify with their family and has resulted in savings
otherwise spent on foster care.
The legislature also finds that current economic conditions have
reduced state funds available for many critical programs. The
legislature further finds that adoption support expenditures continue
to increase. Given these realities, the legislature finds there is a
need to control adoption support costs without adversely impacting
permanency for state dependent children.
The legislature acknowledges that the best way to reduce adoption
support and foster care expenditures is to safely prevent children from
entering the foster care system. However, the legislature also finds
that the recent prospective reduction to adoption support payments set
forth in chapter 50, Laws of 2011 1st sp. sess. has not, to date,
adversely impacted permanency for foster children in need of adoptive
homes.
Therefore, the legislature intends to continue the adoption
assistance rate reduction beyond the period set forth in the operating
budget, while focusing on sustainable long-term efforts to prevent
children from entering the foster care system, such as pursuing a
potential federal Title IV-E waiver, which if granted, would allow
Washington to reinvest dollars otherwise spent on foster care in
prevention programs.
The legislature also finds that many adoptive parents spend
adoption support payments on additional mental health services for
adoptive children that are not currently covered by existing public
programs. The legislature intends to offset adoption support payment
expenditures by facilitating efforts to improve the access and quality
of existing mental health services for adoptive families in the long
term.
NEW SECTION. Sec. 2 A new section is added to chapter 74.13A RCW
to read as follows:
(1) To ensure expenditures continue to remain within available
funds as required by RCW 74.13A.005 and 74.13A.020, the secretary shall
not set the amount of any adoption assistance payment or payments, made
pursuant to RCW 26.33.320 and 74.13A.005 through 74.13A.080, to more
than eighty percent of the foster care maintenance payment for that
child had he or she remained in a foster family home during the same
period. This subsection applies prospectively to adoption assistance
agreements established on or after July 1, 2013.
(2) The department must establish a central unit of adoption
support negotiators to help ensure consistent negotiation of adoption
support agreements that will balance the needs of adoptive families
with the state's need to remain fiscally responsible.
(3) The department must request, in writing, that adoptive families
with existing adoption support contracts renegotiate their contracts to
establish lower adoption assistance payments if it is fiscally feasible
for the family to do so. The department shall explain that adoption
support contracts may be renegotiated as needs arise.
NEW SECTION. Sec. 3 A new section is added to chapter 71.36 RCW
to read as follows:
(1) The department of social and health services, division of
behavioral health and recovery, shall convene a work group as part of
its children's mental health redesign process, to develop
recommendations to better address the mental health service needs of
adoptive families and reduce the need for adoptive families to spend
adoption support payments on mental health services for their adoptive
children. In developing recommendations, the work group should assess:
(a) The mental health service needs of children in adoption support
households;
(b) Existing service and provider capacity to meet the identified
needs of children in adoption support households; and
(c) Additional provider training, consultation or capacity
necessary to meet unmet service needs, and increase the use of
appropriate evidence-based practices.
(2) The work group must include, but is not limited to,
representatives from the department of social and health services
children's administration, the health care authority, the University of
Washington department of psychiatry, the children's mental health
evidence-based practice institute, regional support networks, mental
health service providers, health plans, primary care providers, tribes,
adoptive families, and representatives from other relevant
organizations as needed. The work group shall issue its
recommendations to the legislature no later than December 15, 2012.
(3) This section expires August 1, 2013.