State Budget - COFCCA

May 3, 2023 -COFCCA Statement on FY 2024 NYS Budget

New York State’s budget fails to meet the needs of the nonprofit child welfare programs across the state. COFCCA advocated strongly with our colleagues across the human services sector for an 8.5% human services COLA, in line with the consumer price index. Instead, with a 4% COLA in the final budget, the state will only invest less than half of the needed increase—underfunding programs’ costs and diminishing their ability to provide well-earned, necessary increases for their staff. We appreciate the Legislature’s advocacy to increase the COLA beyond the Governor’s initially proposed amount.

Today New York’s foster care programs have operated for more than one month without knowing what their rates are to provide care and support for children and youth in foster care. COFCCA expects the state to fully fund foster care programs and to ensure that these programs have the resources needed to provide the best possible care and to recruit and retain a highly trained workforce. Governor Hochul has the opportunity to commit to excellence for children and youth in care—we await the Governor’s decision.

We have long advocated for and are pleased to see the child welfare housing subsidy increased as part of the budget for the first time in decades. This is a great first step towards meeting concrete needs for families involved in the child welfare system. We applaud Senator Brisport and Assemblyman Hevesi for their commitment to young people in care and their families.

COFCCA 23-24 One House Budgets Positions

To read and view our testimony at the NYS Budget Hearing, see our Testimony page:
Testimony

To view our state budget priorities for the 2023-24 Budget, open this document:
2023 COFCCA Budget Requests

COFCCA Supports

Investing in the Child Welfare Workforce through:
- Investments in foster care workforce salaries as proposed in S.3101 (Brisport) /A.3411 (Darling).
- Providing meaningful career pathways through increased funding for the Child Welfare Worker Incentive Scholarship Program and the NYS Child Welfare Worker Loan Forgiveness Incentive Program to $1 million each.
An expanded and improved Human Services Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) which:
- Grows consistent with the Consumer Price Index, this year at 8.5%; and
- Ensures equitable investment across the human services workforce by including prevention workers and health home care managers.
Enhancing community supports to support families safely remaining together by increasing reimbursement to counties for uncapped prevention investments to 75%, as proposed in A.2807 (Hevesi).
Ensuring justice for child victims by establishing a Child Victims Act Settlement Fund as proposed in A.1279 (Lunsford).

February 2, 2023 -COFCCA Statement on Executive Budget Proposal
Every day in New York, staff work tirelessly alongside children and families in New York’s child welfare programs to connect families to supports when there is a need for housing, food, clothing, mental health and medical services, and assist them in getting the resources needed to keep their families safe, healthy, and together. Staff support children and youth in foster care, their families of origin, and foster parents working to achieve children’s permanency goals.

In her Executive budget proposal, Governor Hochul recognizes the human services sector including foster care staff and programs with a 2.5% cost of living adjustment. While we appreciate the Governor’s recognition of the sector, this number is simply inadequate given the collective ask from the sector for an 8.5% increase, in line with this year’s consumer price index. Programs, including all human services programs such as foster care prevention programs and health home care managers serving children, need to see the full 8.5% investment in order to keep up with ever-increasing costs and to achieve meaningful staff salary increases.

Today, New York’s foster care programs do not know what their rates will be as of April 1, 2023 due to the state’s actions in setting aside a long-established rate-setting system this past year. While we appreciate clarifying language that was added to allow additional increases outside of the COLA, we do not have information on any increases that may be provided and what the rates will be. COFCCA continues to advocate for full funding of the foster care rates through June 30, 2023, as well as a return to the rate-setting system so that these programs have predictable funding as they continue to do the vital work of caring for children and youth in foster care.

The turnover rate for front line staff in New York’s foster care programs is 49%; turnover for caseworkers in New York’s family foster care, prevention, and residential foster care programs is 24%. The state must invest in this workforce to turn the tide from families’ current reality of beginning therapeutic work over and over again, too often, every time a new worker starts with them. Each budget year that New York does not invest in creating career pathways for child welfare professionals and in raising their salaries to retain them in the field is another year that New York wastes the opportunity to make a real difference in achieving positive outcomes for children—promoting family stability, reducing lengths of stay in foster care, and achieving lasting permanency for children.

We note that the budget includes reference to new federal requirements related to the federal IMD Exclusion. In order to ensure access to care for children and youth in residential foster care settings, COFCCA has requested the state must commit state-only Medicaid funding until there is a federal solution providing federal matching funds for services provided to this population.

We remain hopeful that Governor Hochul and the legislature will work together to ensure that New York’s final budget this year invests in children and families by:

Investing in foster care workforce salaries in response to inflation and the rising minimum wage to ensure the sector has the workforce needed to care for our most vulnerable children and youth.
Fully funding current foster care rates through June 30, 2023.
Increasing funding for the Child Welfare Worker Incentive Scholarship Program and the NYS Child Welfare Worker Loan Forgiveness Incentive Programs by increasing the funding for these programs to $1 million each, to create meaningful career pathways in child welfare.
Expanding and Improving the Human Services Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA): increasing the Human Services COLA, consistent with the Consumer Price Index- this year at 8.5%, and ensuring that it is equitably invested across the human services workforce, to include prevention workers and health home care managers.
Increasing prevention funding to support families safely remaining together: COFCCA urges the state to increase reimbursement to counties for uncapped prevention investment, to 75% as proposed in A.10242 (Hevesi) of 2022.

January 10, 2023 – COFCCA Statement on Governor Kathy Hochul’s 2023 State of the State Address
Today, Governor Kathy Hochul delivered her 2023 State of the State address without a single reference or commitment to investing in New York’s most vulnerable children and families in the state’s child welfare system. The Governor’s lack of commitment and recognition to the state’s child welfare programs is an unacceptable, ongoing reality of her administration. Throughout her tenure, the Governor has largely ignored the staff working alongside children and youth in child welfare programs across the state. Instead, while these staff have worked tirelessly to support children and families’ needs every day, she has allowed for significant turnover of caseworkers and front line staff to continue in these programs–therefore destabilizing the very programs supporting children and youth in the child welfare system. In addition, the state diminished rates of reimbursement to foster care programs under the Governor’s leadership this past year, and in so doing, discarding a long-established rate-setting system without advance notice or discussion to providers. New York State is not living up to its responsibility to provide adequate funding for the full continuum of care for children and youth in the child welfare system.

The Governor today voiced her commitment to boosting supports for individuals with mental health challenges in New York without mentioning the child welfare system in any way—a key system for the state with workers on the front lines supporting thousands of families with navigating mental health challenges every day.

We are incredibly disappointed by the Governor’s lack of attention to these families and the workforce supporting them. We remain hopeful that Governor Hochul and her team will act in her Executive Budget proposal to invest in children and families by:

Investing in foster care workforce salaries in response to inflation and the rising minimum wage to ensure the sector has the workforce needed to care for our most vulnerable children and youth.
Fully funding current foster care rates through June 30, 2023.
Increasing funding for the Child Welfare Worker Incentive Scholarship Program and the NYS Child Welfare Worker Loan Forgiveness Incentive Programs by increasing the funding for these programs to $1 million each, to create meaningful career pathways in child welfare.
Expanding and Improving the Human Services Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA): increasing the Human Services COLA, consistent with the Consumer Price Index- this year at 8.5%, and ensuring that it is equitably invested across the human services workforce, to include prevention workers and health home care managers.
Increasing prevention funding to support families safely remaining together: COFCCA urges the state to increase reimbursement to counties for uncapped prevention investment, to 75% as proposed in A.10242 (Hevesi) of 2022.

January 6, 2022 – COFCCA Statement on Governor Kathy Hochul’s State of the State
Our state is entering a new year with new leadership, and we appreciate Governor Kathy Hochul’s first State of the State address putting forward a positive vision of New York’s future.

We are thrilled to see the Governor’s commitment to invest $500 million for Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs) to help raise wages for human services workers. Human Services workers have been on the front lines of the pandemic, essential workers supporting New York’s children and families tirelessly each day. We applaud Governor Hochul for this recognition of their efforts; it is significant and appreciated.

This is a good start in supporting the child and family-assisting workforce in New York, and yet we have significant additional work ahead, in partnership with the state, given the extreme challenges our programs are experiencing with staff recruitment and retention. If we want our state’s families to be strengthened and our children kept safe, we cannot continue to under-support the professionals who are doing this challenging work, or the adults stepping in to serve as foster parents for those children with myriad needs.

The pandemic has shown us where we need to make improvements for the safety and well-being of New York’s children and families, to strengthen the workforce providing human services and child welfare services, and build up supports youth and young adults need to push our great state’s progress into the future. The Governor’s address makes clear, and we agree, the crisis has highlighted opportunities for transformational change in how we work, learn, and live.

We look forward to collaborating with Governor Hochul and her team in addressing the needs of our member agencies as we assert New York’s position as a leader in supporting children and families.

April 10, 2022 – New York State Child Welfare Coalition (COFCCA, Citizens Committee for Children, Schuyler Center for Analysis & Advocacy, & Children’s Defense Fund-NY) S tatement on the Final NYS 2022-23 Budget

To view COFCCA’s response to the 2022-23 One House Budget proposals, open this document:

COFCCA’s response to the One House Budget Proposals

To view COFCCA’s 2022-23 state budget priorities, open this document:

2022 COFCCA Campaign Priorities

We look forward to collaborating with Governor Hochul and her team in addressing the needs of our member agencies as we assert New York’s position as a leader in supporting children and families.

December 30, 2021 – COFCCA Statement on Appointment of Jess Dannhauser as ACS Commissioner
Congratulations to Jess Dannhauser, the next Commissioner of New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) as announced today by Mayor-elect Eric Adams. Jess has been an outstanding leader in our field, most recently as President & CEO at Graham Windham, and an innovative and passionate voice for Fair Futures—a critically important mentorship program for all youth in foster care through their young adulthood. He is deeply committed to children and their families and we are excited to work alongside him in this new role.

We applaud Mayor-Elect Adams for this outstanding choice of ACS Commissioner. We look forward to working with Commissioner Dannhauser and with the Adams administration on the important priorities ahead of us, including advancing equity and addressing the disproportionate representation of Black and Brown families in the child welfare system; supporting and recognizing the essential child welfare and human services workforce; promoting positive outcomes for our youth involved in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems, and strengthening families with community-based supports and services to avoid child welfare involvement whenever possible.

June 17, 2021 – Statement on the SCOTUS Ruling in Fulton v. Philadelphia
Today the Supreme Court issued their decision in Fulton v. Philadelphia, a limited ruling that may have broader implications for families, children and youth, and those interested in fostering or adopting children. We are deeply concerned about how this ruling is being portrayed and interpreted, and the implications it has for the future.

We stand with the LGBTQIA+ community. We believe child welfare should support and affirm LGBTQIA+ children and youth, parents, foster parents and adoptive parents. We appreciate and value our LGBTQIA+ foster families in New York State and across the country who have chosen to foster and adopt, and we are committed to fighting for equal rights for all families.

June 2, 2020 – Special Statement from Jim Purcell, President and CEO, on behalf of COFCCA
The Council of Family and Child Caring Agencies and our member agencies stand in unity with those among us who have been oppressed and victimized. The nonprofit organizations which comprise the membership of the Council of Family and Child Caring Agencies work every day to strengthen families and children, most of whom are poor, disadvantaged, and too often discounted by our society in countless ways. So very many of these families are people of color who continue to face the added trauma of fear of the kinds of tragedies we saw so vividly in Minneapolis a few days ago. We cannot be silent. All of us must stand up and speak clearly on behalf of our clients, our staff, our communities, and ourselves. The murder of George Floyd by a police officer is unacceptable in a sane and fair society. And that coming after a list of similar travesties, this is not just one more. We need to demand that it be the last one. This evil must stop, and those responsible must be held accountable.

And lest we think “this is so far away” let us note the reprehensible video of the white woman confronting an African American man in Central Park, making a clearly false report to the police. Her demonstration of white privilege was a clear example of the work we need to do. That being said, while we are concerned about public safety during times of civil unrest, we must never take the focus off of the brutal behavior of the officer who sparked the flames of outrage and protests.

This has been a horrible time in our country. There is a dangerous virus infecting millions and killing so many, including, once again, a disproportionate number of black and brown people. Millions are out of work, with serious questions of how long it will take for the economy to replace those jobs. This is not the time to be meeting budget challenges by making cuts which will continue the disinvestment in these communities. Our society, and our government, must not turn their backs on those most severely hurt by all of these disasters. We have learned much working with traumatized children. We have learned that with a little support and guidance they can be amazingly resilient. As Martin Luther King Jr once said “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” That is true. It is up to us to bend the arc much faster.

Should you need immediate information about Legislative Issues, or for Media inquiries, please contact our President and CEO, Kathleen Brady-Stepien, at kbradystepien@cofcca.org.