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  1. #1
    Senior Member sawdust's Avatar
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    Child services' meter still running

    By JOE GERRETY
    jgerrety@journalandcourier.com

    While child services providers were reeling Wednesday from the Tippecanoe County Council's denial of a $3 million loan request by the Department of Child Services, Judge Loretta Rush was opening another account.

    Jose A. Gonzalez, 40, arrested Monday amid allegations that he was one of Tippecanoe County's major importers of cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine, came to juvenile court in shackles with his girlfriend, Iris Lima, 30, to help Rush decide how to care for their 9- and 10-year-old daughters.

    By the end of the half-hour hearing, Rush had ordered drug screens for Gonzalez, Lima, the two fourth-graders, the aunt who wants to take custody of them and her live-in boyfriend.

    In the meantime, DCS will be paying at least $80 a day per child for out-of-county foster care while a case manager tries to figure out how the girls can be brought back to school every day in Tippecanoe County.

    A possible solution: Gonzalez, a self-employed lawn care contractor, testified through a Spanish interpreter that he owns his $76,000 home outright and expects to be able to post his $500,000 surety bond.

    Rush placed a lien on Gonzalez's home and any cash recovered during a search of his home and vehicle to help offset the cost of his children's care. Police have said Gonzalez had about $10,000 in cash.

    That's a set of assets Rush doesn't usually encounter in parents who lose custody of their children because of drug-related arrests.

    Point taken

    Rush said she understands the frustration of the county council members, who must provide funding for the care of abused and neglected children even though they have no control over the mounting costs.

    The only means the county has for raising the money is through increased property taxes.

    She said she's searching hard for economical ways to deal with a growing problem, primarily by placing them as close to home as possible.

    "Each child we take out of the home, we're paying less on them than we did in 1995, but there are just more kids," she said.

    Multiple expenses

    In addition to foster care costs, some children have emotional problems or sexual abuse issues and require institutional care that costs a minimum of $175 a day per child.

    As Child Services attempts to reunite those children with their biological parents, agencies such as the Community and Family Resource Center charge $40 to $60 an hour to supervise visits.

    At the same time, the parents are usually in court-ordered substance abuse treatment programs that can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Few of them have insurance or the means to pay for the treatment out of pocket.

    Service providers

    Jane Dobbins, executive director of Group Homes for Children, a nonprofit agency that operates three group homes for abused and neglected children in Lafayette, is caring for 14 displaced children from Tippecanoe County.

    Group Homes last received payment from DCS for services provided in April, and the department currently owes the agency more than $260,000 -- about half of Group Homes' annual budget.

    To meet its own expenses, Dobbins said, the agency recently had to cash in some certificates of deposit, taking an interest penalty in the process.

    It's a statewide problem, Dobbins said, although Tippecanoe County's shortfall seems to be greater than most communities.

    In a recent survey, 75 member agencies of the Indiana Association of Residential Child Care Agencies, reported a total of $11 million in accounts receivable from DCS that had been outstanding for more than 60 days.

    Many have turned to outside borrowing to cover their expenses at a total cost of $226,735, Dobbins said.

    Despite the costs, Dobbins said, there is no plan by Group Homes to close its doors to children referred by Tippecanoe County DCS.

    "We feel very strongly, as an agency it is our mission to take care of these children," Dobbins said. "We will not do that."

    'Streaming in'

    Even if Children in Need of Services are permitted to stay with their biological parents, the court often orders in-home family preservation workers to make frequent visits at a cost of $40 to $60 an hour, Rush said.

    A year ago, according to Angela Smith Grossman, director of the county's Department of Child Services, the office was supervising the care of 250 children placed out of their homes. That number is 430 today, she said.

    Grossman said the department is about $2.4 million in debt. She expects it will spend about $1.25 million more through the rest of the year, she said.

    Grossman says she fears those expenses will leave the department hardly any money to use at the beginning of 2007.

    The department has a budget of $13.4 million for 2007. And it won't receive any money from property taxes until the end of June, she said.

    "I am keenly aware of the cost of these programs," Rush, the juvenile court judge, said Wednesday. "I am looking for affordable ways to treat these kids, but they are just streaming in here."

    http://www.jconline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a ... /1141/NEWS

    There is a picture of this guy and his girlfriend and more stories about their arrest.

  2. #2
    Senior Member CountFloyd's Avatar
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    Let's multiply this story by a couple of hundred thousand to see what's happening all across the country.

    Anybody here familiar with the term "hyperinflation"?

    If you aren't, you will be in the near future.
    It's like hell vomited and the Bush administration appeared.

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