Issue 30 - Questions and Answers
What will this levy pay for?
We use child welfare property tax levies primarily for the care and support of the children in the custody of the Agency. Over the last ten years months, the Agency has averaged 861 kids in care at any given time. We also use the funds to offset the local share of business operations such as staff salary, training, and supplies.
Is this a renewal, a replacement or new levy?
New.
How many mills is this and how much money will it raise annually for Lucas County Children Services?
We’re asking for 1.5 mills. Based on existing property values, the Lucas County Auditor certified that it would generate $ 13,738,00 annually.
How many years would this renewal levy run?
Five years.
Why do you need additional funding?
It comes down to one thing – federal legislation that has dramatically increased how much it costs us to raise the 861 children in our Agency. We refer to this as “Placement Costs” and includes the payments we make to foster homes, group homes and hospital-like residential facilities that house some of our most traumatized children.
Here in Lucas County, we’ve averaged about 861 kids in our custody at any given time. Most of those kids can do well in a traditional family-like setting such as a foster home or in a relative’s care. However, about 10 percent of our kids (75-80 individuals) need a much higher level of care and intervention that foster parents or relatives can provide.
Through no fault of their own, these are some of the most traumatized kids in the county. As a result, they require a specialized environment run by medical and behavioral health professionals beyond that which a layperson could provide. Most of these providers are private non-profit companies that we contract with to provide care, board, and support for these children.
It is imperative that we provide this care. We’ve always known that exposure to adverse childhood experiences leads to severe behavior problems in children. It was only recently that research confirmed that exposure to adverse childhood experiences also changes the physiology of the brain. Long-term exposure to abuse, neglect or household dysfunction can literally change how the brain and body develops. And this has the potential to affect a child for the rest of his or her life – emotionally, behaviorally, and physically. So, to avoid this, we need to intervene early and comprehensively. The longer this goes on untreated, the worse it will be for the child as they enter adulthood.
The treatments were always intensive and expensive. But this recent federal legislation has made it even more expensive. It’s called the Family First Prevention Services Act. this law went into effect in Ohio in October of 2021. Essentially what this law did was place a lot of additional, but worthy, burdens on the private agencies that provide residential care for our children.
For example, the act requires all private child placing agencies to have 24/7 access to nursing care, requires them to develop programs to provide therapeutic services for children for six months after they leave their care, requires them to use only well-supported therapeutic practices that are approved by the federal government and requires them all to be accredited by third parties. Again, this is all best practice – but it is very expensive to implement and maintain. The federal government provided no funding to offset these costly regulations. We call this an unfunded mandate.
Child Welfare agencies across the state and country started to see immediate increases in costs. To put this in perspective, for the five years before this law went into effect, Lucas County Children Services averaged a little over $12 M per year in placement costs. That went up to $15.3 M in 2022, $19.4 M in 2023 and we’re probably going to come in around $21.5 M this year. That’s $9 M more per year now than before the FFPSA. Almost a 77% increase.
The State of Ohio has only recently started to implement mitigation strategies to offset the dramatic increase in costs. We have seen the rate if increase decline but not abate. The hope is that once the initial impact of the FFPSA subsides, the prevention aspect will start to reduce costs. But it is unrealistic to think that will happen in the next 3-5 years.
What is the annual operating budget of Lucas County Children Services?
It varies because the bulk of our federal receipts are based on reimbursement for placement costs – which vary depending on the number of kids we have in care and their level of care. Our operating budget is usually between $55 M and $59 M.
How much money does Children Services have in reserve?
As of July 1, we have $8,547,796 in reserve.
How many employees does Children Services have?
We are authorized to have 400. However, due to the current workforce crisis we only have 373.
Does CSB plan to hire any more staff or give any pay raises if this replacement levy passes?
Yes, we intend to hire more staff as one part of an integrated strategy to respond to the increasing complexity of the cases we’re seeing as a result of the pandemic and recent federal legislation. We are not contractually obligated to provide raises as we are in the last year of our Collective Bargaining Agreements. Negotiations will begin in November and will involve a complex intersection of many factors. Therefore, it would be premature and relatively futile to speculate as to the ultimate result of those negotiations.
How much would the current levy cost the owner of a $100,000 home annually.
$52.50 per year. A “mill” means that the owner of residential property pays $1.00 for every one thousand dollars of value of his/her property. Therefore, a 1.0 mill levy would generate $100 on a $100,000 home. BUT, under Ohio law, we’re only taxed on 35% of the true value of residential property [see ORC 5715.01(B)]. So, the taxable value of that $100,000 home would be $35,000. If this were a 1.0 mill levy the owner would, therefore, pay $35.00 per year. But it is a 1.5 mill levy so the actual annual cost to the owner of a $100,00 home would be $52.50.
What percentage of CSB's annual operating budget comes from local real estate tax levies and what percentage from the state? What are CSB's other revenue sources and what percent do they provide?
For 2023 it was:
Local Real Estate Tax = 50%
Federal = 36.53%
State Funds = 12.40%
Miscellaneous = 1.0% (child support collected from parents, offsets from partner agencies that share placement costs)