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Last night, I went to my county foster parent association meeting and couple of things were brought up:
1. Florida is attempting to cut 19 million dollars from adoption/foster care;
2. 7 million will be cut from Independant Living (so kids aging out will not be able to get a bigger IL subsidy and post services;
3. No more adoption subsidies for adoptions taking place after July 2008, even special needs children. They will still get Medicaid and the scholarship but no post adoption services;
4. Will be cutting funding for Therapists, CW, Behavioral Therapists etc... which would mean our kids would not be getting the services they need and our CW will have a higher case load and will in turn affect them with turnaround.
My FPA is working on a letter to send to the State Reps, Governor, Congress etc. so this does not get passed.
Check with your local FPA and advise them of this. Once I get the letter I will be more than happy to PM it to you.
I will keep you posted.
Oh, this is all so sad. What has happened here in Florida? How come we suddenly don't have the resources to take care of education and children.
We will pay the price for this down the line in terms of our quality of life if we raise children we can't educate and protect, but these children will suffer today!
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It all comes back down to the property tax cut, they need to cut costs somewhere. It's very sad and am afraid that we will be heading back to the old Florida foster care system.
I am wondering if the cut in subsidies is the ones that FL itself pays. THat is the same thing that happened in Missouri a few years ago and after some lawsuits i believe that it was over turned. IF a child is determined to be Title IV E eligible then the subsidy comes from the federal government and the states can't cut that off. (as far as I know). If a child is not 4E eligible then the states are to pay the subsidy and that is likely the one that is looking to be cut.
Either way it is not good for the kids.
It is because of the property tax cuts. The Guardian ad Litem office already made cuts in its stafff. We lost 5 people about a month ago. More cuts are to come next month. It is effecting every agency in the state.
I should clarify that is just 5 people in our office. Every GAL office made cuts. They had to trim the budget by 10%.
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