Athens Children Services Shares How They Function With Inadequate State Funding

Maya Meade

According to Governor Mike DeWine, as of 2018, Ohio has the least state funding for children services in the country. Even if the amount of state funding was doubled, Ohio would still be in last place. Counties across the state struggle to get the money that local children services need to employ staff and sufficiently serve the children. Children services cannot turn children away, and don’t want to, but there is little that they can do without funds from the state.

Athens County, Ohio, one of the poorest counties in the country, and a region in the height of the opioid crisis, struggles for funds every year. Athens County Children Services voiced strong, positive opinions about DeWine’s budget proposal, and posted an article to its website around the time of DeWine’s proposal. The proposal stated 52 percent of children services funding comes from local sources, 39 percent comes from federal sources and only nine percent of funds comes from the state.

Illustrations by Ashley Laflin

Cathy Hill, the executive director of Athens County Children Services, believes that Athens County will see an increase in funding, but cannot predict for certain what will happen. Athens County updated their levy in November of 2019, which generates about $2.28 million per year for children services.

Robin Webb, the public information officer and community event coordinator of Athens County Children Services works closely with the children and members of the community that see the direct effect that this budget crisis has on Athens County. She discusses how Athens County Children Services receives money from the federal, state and local level which greatly impacts their revenue.

 “Because we are able to count on our local community to support the vital work we do, Athens County is able to provide more robust services for families those other counties without local tax funding aren’t able to provide,” Webb says.

According to Policy Matters Ohio, from 2011 to 2018, the investment of state and federal dollars for the public childcare program dropped by $83.1 million. In 2019, DeWine proposed a new amount of state funding that would increase by $74 million and bring the total amount of annual state funding to $151 million.

The Ohio Statehouse website states, “This money will help connect foster care kids with homes and bring at-risk children the resources that they need.” Half of Ohio’s counties do not have levies that bring in funding for children’s services, so “an increase in state support can go a long way.”

Children services goes beyond the foster care system and the funds are needed everywhere. Policy Matters Ohio provides information about a service in Ohio called Help Me Grow home visiting. Home visiting is a program that people can volunteer to participate in as pregnant women and mothers. A health professional or social worker visits the home once a month from the time that the mother is pregnant and into the child’s first few years of life.

One of the key benefits to this program is that it has been proven to reduce infant mortality (which occurs when a baby does not live past its first birthday) rates. Ohio’s infant mortality rates are 20 percent higher than the national objective at 7.2 deaths per 1,000 live births a year compared to 6.0 nationally. While the state funding of this service was “anticipated to rise by about 1.2 percentage points” according to Policy Matters Ohio in the 2018-19 budget plan, the program has lost $18 million since 2006. From 2014 to 2018, funding rose by 17 percent. DeWine’s proposed budget increase promised three times the amount of home visiting, however, the Help Me Grow program would still only reach 15 percent of eligible families in Ohio.

When this problem is broken down by county, it is clear certain areas of Ohio struggle more than others. Senator Edna Brown of Toledo in Lucas County, Ohio, called attention to this issue at the beginning of 2017 by giving the public some perspective. According to the Ohio Senate website she said, “It is embarrassing that the share of state funding for public children services in Ohio is only 5 percent when the national average is 40 percent.”

Robin Reese, the Lucas County Children Services director, encourages the public to think about this issue at a much deeper level. She addresses the opioid crisis that runs deep in Ohio and says that much of the nation considers the opioid crisis to be an adult-oriented issue. The problem with this is that people do not consider the effects that the opioid crisis has on children. The adults are the ones that face the consequences, but then their children are left without parental care.

This particular issue is something that Athens County struggles with intensely, affecting children in different ways depending on their needs. Some children might need private or licensed foster homes while others need therapeutic and residential centers. Webb provides details about how different every child’s need is and describes the challenges that accompany trying to prioritize funds.

“One of our largest and most variable expenses is placing children in our custody into temporary foster care,” she says. “Depending on the needs of the child, the cost of placing a child in foster care can range from $24-450 a day.”

Webb says that Athens County Children Services have always stayed up to date on changes to the state budget, especially with the state’s response to COVID-19. According to Webb, over half of the counties in Ohio have local tax levies that support child protective services. Athens is fortunate to receive a significant amount of local support from community members, despite having one of the highest poverty levels in the state, while also existing in a rural location and with limited Broadband access compared to other counties in the area.

With the uncertainty of the global pandemic and the small amount of funding that children services are receiving already, it will take time before Athens is really in the right place financially, but Webb is thankful that DeWine is taking steps in the right direction.

 “We all benefit when our leaders can shine a light on and offer funding and support for the vital role our child protective service agencies play in our communities,” she says.