Child care worker Marci Then helps her daughter, Mila, 4, put away toys to get ready for circle time at the Little Learners Academy in Smithfield, R.I. (Photo by Elaine S. Povich/Stateline)
Maine helps cover the cost of child care for children who are in the state’s foster care system; however, there have been recent reports of untimely payments.
While the majority of child care providers are being paid on time, there is a subset who are experiencing delays, said Office of Child and Family Services Director Bobbi Johnson. She shared a breakdown of how that payment system works and what could be causing those delays with the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee Wednesday.
Last month, lawmakers asked the Government Oversight Committee to investigate late child care reimbursement payments from the Department of Health and Human Services, which houses the child welfare agency. Three Republican senators who serve on the accountability committee asked for a deeper look at how the department handles the payments after hearing from providers who have waited on reimbursements.
The office spends about $6 million annually using state general funds to cover the cost of child care for children in custody, Johnson said. In general, the state pays market rate for child care, she said, but there are instances where it pays more, such as for children with complex behavioral or medical needs or living in areas with limited child care options.
More than half of the 841 children in state custody who are 4 years old or younger need child care services. And as children get older, the need for those services decreases, Johnson explained.
Of the nearly 800 child care facilities in the state, just over a quarter of them are currently caring for children who are in state custody. There are also more than 650 registered providers operating in private homes throughout the state, and about 90 of them are caring for children in state custody, according to data Johnson shared with the committee.
When a provider is caring for a child in state custody, they invoice the Office of Child and Family Services, rather than the resource family caring for that child.
Johnson outlined a few points in that process where technical snags can cause payment delays. These include the initial process of setting up providers as vendors in the payment system; providers sending an invoice by mail, fax or some other method outside of the dedicated email inbox established by the state office; or when invoices are submitted at different time intervals, which can affect the timeliness of payments.
Johnson also acknowledged that staff turnover at the department has contributed to some of the slow down.
Although the hold up isn’t affecting all child care providers who work with the state, Johnson said the agency has been taking steps to improve this aspect of the child welfare system. Access to child care can be a key factor in being able to place a child with a foster family, Johnson explained.
Johnson also said the agency piloted a staff position dedicated to child care invoices who also helped families identify providers and other resources. The temporary position expired, but Johnson said it was helpful to have a centralized approach but said if that position were made permanent, the agency would likely need two to cover the entire state.
There have also been efforts to improve the processing of vendors, including the addition of two contracted workers to manage those forms. This allows those individuals to build expertise on the process and navigate any issues, rather than requiring caseworkers to manage that work, Johnson said.
In addition to managing child care for children in state custody, the Office of Child and Family Services also oversees the Child Care Affordability Program, which uses federal and state funds to help eligible families pay for child care.
Currently, those programs are handled separately, but Johnson said there is discussion about putting them in the same automated system to better manage and streamline child care services.
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