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After many promises, extensive negotiations and a long delay
requiring a 17-day stopgap measure, Republican Governor Mike
DeWine finally signed a $69 billion Ohio budget last week.
Despite the last-minute drama created by DeWine’s 25
line-item veto action, the budget will fund the state
government for the next two years.
The budget, which represents an unprecedented $237 million
over the biennium for county children services agencies,
includes important gains for key local human needs service
providers such as Lucas County Children Services.
Child abuse and neglect,
unfortunately, are part of the devastating collateral damage
from the opioid addiction crisis that affects nearly three
quarters of states and has fueled a dramatic increase in
foster care, reports the Brookings Institute, relying on
statistics from the Department of Health and Human Services.
Nationally, according to
the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media,
Politics and Public Policy, Child Protective Services
agencies investigate or respond to over three million
children per year. Although most cases of abuse and neglect
occur among white children, African-American children suffer
the highest rate of victimization.
Here locally, Lucas County
Children Services (LCCS) has long been involved in the fight
against the victimization of children due to neglect and
physical, sexual and emotional abuse.
Yet, like other child
protection agencies, LCCS has seen the agency pushed to the
brink as it struggles with the massive increase of “children
now coming into the system, staying longer and requiring
more treatment and cross system services.”
The recently signed Ohio
budget, however, more than doubles the State Child
Protection Allocation, providing LCCS with a refreshing and
robust infusion of help that will enable the agency to
improve outcomes for children whose futures are threatened
by the opioid crisis.
LCCS Executive Director
Robin Reese, comments: “I’m ecstatic about the budget. This
is the first governor that has really put this kind of
effort behind children and families and not even limit it to
just the child protection side but extend to others in
poverty. There’s a lot of good stuff in this budget.”
“I honestly think that we
will be able to keep more families intact and reduce these
[foster care or out of home placement] numbers, especially
in African-American families because they’re
disproportionately represented in the system. So, this is
the kind of money that we need to get some of this
programming going,” Reese adds.
Ohio has been ranked 50th
or nearly last in the nation in terms of strength of child
protection, Reese asserts. “And that has continued through
both Democrat and Republican leadership, placing an
excessive burden on counties to try to come up with the
money. This governor (DeWine) is so serious about what he
has allocated for child protection that he is putting a
special stipulation on counties so that they can’t decrease
their investment based on what he’s given us. And not only
that, he had some signature programs that he started when he
was Attorney General, like the Ohio Start Program that he
has also put money into. Before, that funding was limited to
a few private counties but now all of us can take advantage
of it.”
However, not all local
entities are happy with the final budget. Local governments
complain that the state is sitting on approximately $2
billion as a result of “cutbacks for the rich,” leaving
municipal and county budgets starved from the structural
hole created by the state’s redirection of funds.
Local legislators, Sen.
Teresa Fedor and Rep. Lisa Sobecki, voted against the budget
despite a $382 million increased allocation for public
schools. “Toledo will have some money in this budget,”
Sobecki, who opposed the budget primarily because of her
stance against the Academic Distress Commission, a
legislative policy left intact which threatens to take over
schools from local control if deemed low performing.
“I would say that there’s
pieces and parts that everyone’s happy with and unhappy
with. So, in my old labor days, they would tell you that’s a
good contract,” Sobecki confesses.
What is certain is that we
are faced with a generation of children that have
experienced devastating trauma due to opioid and substance
abuse. Sufficient financial, social, emotional, mental,
medical and other resources are required to address their
needs.
Overall, Devine’s budget
stands in the gap for children that have been abused and
neglected.
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, D.Min, at
drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org
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