Agency responsible for child welfare services in Georgia is on track for $48M budget shortfall

The head of Georgia’s Division of Family and Children Services faced questions from lawmakers Wednesday over the agency’s multi-million dollar deficit. As of last month, the department faced a projected shortfall of about $85 million by the end of the fiscal year on June 30, leading to restricted services for families and terminated contracts with […]

DFCS Director and DHS Commissioner Candice Broce speaks before a joint budget committee. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder

The head of Georgia’s Division of Family and Children Services faced questions from lawmakers Wednesday over the agency’s multi-million dollar deficit.

As of last month, the department faced a projected shortfall of about $85 million by the end of the fiscal year on June 30, leading to restricted services for families and terminated contracts with nonprofits since November.

DFCS serves vulnerable children and families including by investigating abuse and neglect, administering aid like food assistance and managing foster care and adoption.

John DeGarmo is the founder of an advocacy group called the Foster Care Institute and a foster parent to more than 60 children in Georgia. He also runs a Facebook page for Georgia foster and adoptive parents with nearly 8,000 members.

DeGarmo said many of those members are foster parents looking for help right now.

“They’re very, very troubled, they’re very concerned, they’re very disappointed and they’re very frustrated with the budget cuts,” he said. “They’re also very disappointed and frustrated that there’s been so much silence on it from DFCS. I had several today on the page say that they’re not getting calls for placements, they’re having a lack of transportation right now, and a lot of foster parents are very, very worried.”

Speaking at a budget hearing Wednesday, Department of Human Services Commissioner Candice Broce, who oversees DFCS, said that by cutting some provider contracts, the agency now projects a deficit of around $48 million by the end of the fiscal year.

Broce characterized the terminated contracts as wasteful.

“It’s not going to be, frankly, well received, but it is nonetheless the truth that those particular providers were either not doing what we had contracted for, or we could take the capacity in-house, or it was duplicative,” she said.

She said about four or five contracts had been canceled.

Gov. Brian Kemp’s recommended budget attempts to address the shortfall by including a $41 million increase in spending for out-of-home care for children removed from their families in the current fiscal year and $21 million for next year.

Broce said part of the reason for the shortfall comes down to difficulty accessing health care for foster children. She said the agency serves children with complex needs and has little power to control costs.

“They have pending charges. They have gang affiliation. They have a runaway risk or a history of it. They have a history of sexual exploitation,” she said of the most at-risk children in DFCS care. “They have fire-starting behaviors. They have low IQ or some combination of all of those things. And it’s well known that providers willing to serve those children have incredibly strong negotiating power – if we find one, you better believe I’m going to write a check.”

Broce said judges often call for services beyond what DFCS recommends, which also drives costs up. She gave examples including judges ordering more parental visitations than recommended, adding costs for transportation, or ordering multiple drug tests per week for parents, even in cases in which drug use is not suspected.

“Judges will, from all across the state, order DFCS to provide specific services and specific care, and usually we agree with what they order,” she said. “Sometimes we don’t. If we don’t, we need to appeal if we can. That’s very rare. Or we need to comply, because one of the consequences of non-compliance with a court order is jail for our case workers, or perhaps me. Hopefully not.”

Joel Lyon is the owner and CEO of ProFamily, a mental health agency that works with DFCS with the goal of preventing families from being separated. Lyon said he has seen the number of providers in his network shrink by about 30%. That includes clinical and paraprofessional staff as well as people who provide in-home services.

Speaking after Wednesday’s meeting, Lyon said he is “cautiously optimistic” that the shrinking in the projected deficit is a sign that families could soon be receiving the same level of services as they did before. He said he is also hopeful lawmakers will see this situation as an opportunity to improve those services.

“The families that we work with are desperately in need of help, and we would love for the Legislature to really understand how we can best help them,” he said.

But DeGarmo said he’s not encouraged by the projected deficit’s apparent shrinking because he fears the reduction will come at the expense of programs that benefit Georgia families.

State Rep. Katie Dempsey, a Rome Republican who chairs the subcommittee that oversees the DFCS budget, echoed that concern to Broce.

“If the contracts are kept terminated, we begin to see a reduction, a big reduction, there’s no doubt, (it’s a) huge challenge,” she said. “But what happens to those children and those families? And that’s the concern that’s overpowering this room right now.”

Broce is scheduled to appear before Dempsey’s subcommittee Friday.

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