Drastic Cuts to State's Budget Hurt Our Children
Buried in the flood of pandemic news have been a few stories about an issue that may hurt our most vulnerable young Missourians even more than COVID-19.
Responding to a 7 percent drop in state revenues and concerns about Missourians being able to pay future tax bills, the governor recently signed Missouri’s $35 billion spending plan for the new fiscal year--cutting $448 million. The new budget withheld more than $368,000 from child support enforcement, more than $3.5 million from social services field programs and more than $1.2 million from youth treatment initiatives.
The new budget cut 500 jobs—200 unfilled. The remaining 300 were in the Division of Social Services. Especially hard hit were two agencies that serve the state’s most vulnerable children and youth---the Division of Social Services’ Children’s Division, which administers child welfare services, and the Division of Youth Services, which cares for, and treats, youth in state juvenile court custody.
The Division of Social Services is already understaffed and deals with high turnover and social worker burnout because of stress. Many of the employees who are losing their jobs oversee critical, direct service workers assigned to the hotline unit, child abuse investigations and foster care. These managers and supervisors bring enormous institutional knowledge to their positions. Without them, new workers have little access to the experienced guidance they need to make appropriate decisions. This is particularly concerning as staff turnover, high caseloads, and inadequate resources have been shown to impede the system’s ability to support the reunification of foster children with their families and other permanency options.
In St. Louis City and County, CASA’s 240-person volunteer force and 19-member staff work closely with the Children’s Division professionals to provide critical support and advocacy to children in foster care in St. Louis City and County.
The Children’s Division staff serves 20,000 children in foster care each year and has recently carried an average daily caseload of nearly 13,000 children (according to Fostering Court Improvement, which supplies collaborative data from Children’s Division and the Juvenile Courts Office).
In fiscal year 2020, CASA of St. Louis served 952 children. That does not include the parents, grandparents, foster parents, and partners that CASA volunteers and staff and the Children’s Division professionals work with every day to ensure the safety of children and youth and to help this vulnerable population achieve permanent homes.
We acknowledge that difficult decisions had to be made as elected officials were forced to cut millions. But a disproportionate amount of the budget cuts fell on social services. We, at CASA of St. Louis, are deeply concerned because these reductions come at a time when these children may be even more vulnerable.
During the months of COVID-19 shutdowns and restrictions, calls to the state child abuse and neglect hotline have dropped by half. That may not be good news---many experts fear abuse is just going undetected. In lock-down, vulnerable children have no one outside their homes who can report abuse or neglect (e.g. teachers, counselors, doctors, pastors, etc.). When children return to schools or places where people can see and hear what’s going on, most of us expect to see a surge of abuse cases. Because of these enormous reductions, there will be fewer employees to handle the soaring caseload.
As an organization that advocates for abused and neglected children, it is our duty now to speak out against this. We want to know why children are the first to suffer losses during this budget crisis. We are deeply concerned about the impact these cuts will have on child safety and stability throughout our state.
More tough budget decisions may lie ahead as this pandemic continues to place enormous pressure on our public health system and cause our economy to struggle. We call on our elected officials to recognize the need to support our most vulnerable children and to avoid any future cuts to critical agencies that serve Missouri’s children and their families.
We ask that all voters reach out to state legislators, the Governor and others in authority to express concern about the reductions made to a state agency that is essential in making a positive difference in the lives of Missouri’s most vulnerable children.
Jennifer V. Howard, Chief Executive Officer
Cheryl D. Latham, Chief Program Officer