Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services tries to make do with less money, Dissell, Rachel. Cleveland Plain Dealer, Oct. 19, 2009.CLEVELAND -- Overwhelmed parents, calling from the last knot on their rope, won't get help from the Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services.
That's because with a total of at least
$19 million in state cuts last year, this year and the next, the department can no longer afford the services.
After years of building preventive programs to keep children out of foster care, the agency is making
soul-churning choices.
"We have been all things to all people for a long time," department director Deborah Forkas said. "This will not be the same agency anymore. We will only be able to do what we are mandated to do and nothing more."
That means the agency, which has one of the largest budgets in the county, at $164 million this year, will wait until a baby is born drug-positive to step in. The agency will work with families only when abuse and neglect have been verified or other problems have actually occurred, rather than stepping in early to help.
And it will peel back efforts elsewhere to focus on its core mission: aiding seriously abused and neglected children, especially the youngest and most helpless kids.
So far, projected cuts from 2008 through 2010 amount to more than 10 percent of the agency's budget.
That does not take into consideration cuts to nonprofit and grant-funded agencies the county collaborates with. Many of those have suffered severe cutbacks as well. And more cuts could still come. It's depressing news for any county, which throughout Ohio are grappling with shrinking state aid and growing need.
So state officials are giving counties as much flexibility as possible in deciding what to cut.
"Each county has different priorities, different funding sources," said Brian Harter, a spokesman for Ohio Job and Family Services.
"Some counties have levy dollars, some don't. It's up to each individual county to prioritize how they spend their money. They have a better sense of the needs of their county."In that sense, Cuyahoga County is lucky. Sort of.
In addition to state and federal money for health and human services, the county began collecting money for needy families, elderly programs and MetroHealth Medical Center in 1976 when it passed its first health and human service levy. The county passed a second levy in 1989, and now, the two taxes are replaced or renewed by voters every four or five years, including one tax last year.
In 2004, county commissioners pledged to spend only levy money -- not general fund income -- on health and human services. That way, funding for the agencies remains separate from the pool of money that pays for most county services and offices.
Of course, both streams of money are fueled by taxes, mostly sales tax for the general fund, and property tax for the health and human services fund.
But county officials are not considering mixing the money, even while they bemoan what they call "devastating" state cuts.
The county is even shifting some costs, such as $365,000 for the public defender's social work staff, from the general fund to the health and human services levies.
Commissioners Tim Hagan and Peter Lawson Jones said they don't believe the county should use general fund money to make up for health and human service losses. But
every dollar spent reflects a choice, a point Hagan made at a commissioners' meeting last month.
"We should be investing in our children as quickly as we can," he said.
Still, county officials are independently elected and so, can choose how to spend their allotted budgets.
The county treasurer's staff can attend weekend festivals to share information about subsidized home loans and easy payment programs. The auditor can have three satellite offices.
Auditor Frank Russo spends about $45,000 annually to rent three offices throughout Cleveland, said Destin Ramsey, the auditor's chief of staff. Fourteen office assistants are paid a total of $560,000 to work at the offices, to answer questions and process licenses.
"Every agency has their budget," Ramsey said. "Either you spend it or you don't."
The county budget office calculates the spending for each office. But commissioners really have no control over elected officials' budgets, other than the total dollar amounts.
"It's a conundrum," McCafferty said. "You certainly want services for health and human services. But there are also services for the general population. You can't just cut out all other services to support health and human services."
In the past, Cuyahoga County had a strong reputation statewide for investing money in its children.
Forkas
planned to develop a program for older foster-care children, about to "age out," or leave the system. But now the agency cannot afford to make those children a top priority, especially since Forkas said
the agency has lost more than 200 positions though a combination of unfilled positions, layoffs and buyouts.The layoffs included workers who supervised visitation. That work has now been shifted to social workers. The staff of special advocates and workers who assist drug-addicted parents also has been snipped.
Forkas said she's not sure state officials realize the actual impact of their cuts.
"They ought to be out here and see these families and these kids," she said. "Of course this is bad for us, but it is 10 times worse for our clients who are suffering."
Although doing less will save money now, it could end up costing more as untreated problems fester, experts say.
"Whenever we cut the up-front, early preventive services, the cases that come to us later on are further along and more intense," said Crystal Ward Allen, executive director of the Public Children Services Association of Ohio.
"I do believe it will come back and be more costly, not only financially, but also in terms of child outcomes." Jon Honeck, director of public policy for the Center for Community Solutions said that a few years ago, a poor family might be able to get help fixing a car so a parent could get to his job.
Now the money isn't available. "Having these prevention, retention and contingency funds, having them go away or be cut down to nothing,
it's penny-wise, pound-foolish," he said.
But Honeck doesn't think counties can raid their general funds to pay for preventive programs. That's because of declining sales tax revenue and state budget cuts affecting other county functions.
"All the counties are in a revenue crunch, to one degree or another," he said. "I don't know if there really is anywhere they could do major shifts. You can't fix this just by tinkering around the edges."
Forkas agrees. Resigned to the fact she cannot prevent all the cuts, she has moved on to other strategies.
The agency plans to seek more grants. And it's reaching out to business and community groups.
Earlier this year, on a whim, Forkas wrote a letter to a Lowe's Home Improvement store, explaining that there was no adequate outdoor place for parents and siblings to visit each other at the agency's downtown office.
Parents attempting to reunite with their children often start visiting at the agency under supervision of social workers.
To her surprise, Lowe's donated nearly $4,500 worth of plants and materials for the visitation center and urban garden.
"We just have to get more creative now, I guess," Forkas said.
