Improving foster care part of new state budget
Death of 3-year-old boy in Cincinnati sparked decision
Improving foster care part of new state budget
Chillicothe Gazette, March 2007.
COLUMBUS - Gov. Ted Strickland's first budget adds $20.8 million in the next two years to improve foster care training, licensing and enforcement - a direct result of the murder of Marcus Fiesel in August in Cincinnati, state officials said.
"It is our hope that this terrible incident will never be repeated in the future," Strickland said Thursday during a Cincinnati visit to tout his budget.
During the next two years, foster care spending would rise from $74.9 million this year to $85.3 million, then $95.7 million.
Most of the increase - channeled through county child welfare agencies - would go for training of workers and parents, in-home inspections, background checks and investigations of child abuse and neglect, according to a budget summary released Thursday.
About $1.3 million of the increase would go to additional state oversight of foster care, according to Budget Director Pari Sabety. Thursday at a news conference, Sabety said the changes resulted from a review of problems that led to Marcus' death.
Marcus, a 3-year-old with disabilities from Middletown, died in the Clermont County home of his foster parents, David and Liz Carroll, because the couple tied him up, locked him in a closet, then left town for two days.
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