The Oneida County Board this week asked the state to increase the Children and Family Aids Allocation to counties to help them pay for the costly out-of-home placement costs for juveniles.
The counties report the state has greatly underfunded the program. The request was for an additional $30 million statewide.
Oneida County Social Services Director Mary Rideout says protective services has seen a sharp increase in the number of children of opioid and methamphetamine users...
"...This year, again, we're in a bit of a crisis with our out-of-home care budget. We are almost double of what we spent last year in our out-of-home care costs. Those are costs for youth we've removed from homes because of the safety concerns and have either placed in foster homes with relatives or in residential or group settings..."
Rideout says they did get a funding bump last year that brought in one additional person to Social Services, but the caseloads still are heavy. She says part of the problem is Wisconsin does not regulate the number of caseloads..
"..So there's no standard for us to say a Social Worker should have 20 cases or 10 cases or they should be serving 30 kids. What we're looking for is for the standard to be set because we believe our caseloads are too high and that reduces our ability to serve the children in our community..."
Rideout says they could have a cost of $300 per month if the child is place with a relative. In another situation where a child is placed in a facility with schooling and other resources, there's a cost of $14,000 a month. It cost $1.1 million dollars last year for out-of-home placement in Oneida county, according to Supervisor Bob Mott.
