Study Proposes Minimum Rates For Foster Care

TAMPA - Linda Manci treks from Valrico to Plant City to buy farm-fresh produce, splitting the bounty - and cost - among friends.

Food co-ops fill the rest of the grocery list. She buys clothes for her two teenage girls at Ross Dress For Less. Help with the holidays comes by way of local charities.

The rest falls to Manci and her husband, Sam, who probably sound like typical middle-class parents making ends meet.

Except the Mancis also are foster parents, raising someone else's child.

In four years, the couple has cared for 17 foster children in addition to their own offspring. Although the state provides a monthly stipend to cover some costs, it's not nearly enough, Manci says.

After spending at least $5,000 from their own pockets each year, the Mancis let their foster care license expire last year, thinking they couldn't do it anymore.

Then they heard about a little girl who desperately wanted a home.

'After this one, no more,' Manci swears.

It's a common refrain among foster parents and child welfare advocates across the country, and the impetus for a study released last week calling for minimum reimbursement rates nationwide.

Currently, each state sets its own rate, money that comes from a blend of local and federal funding. In Florida, the rate is $429 per month for children up to 5 years old, $440 per month for 6- to 12-year-olds, and $515 a month for teens 13 and older.

According to the study, known as Foster Care Minimum Adequate Rates for Children, national benchmarks should be set at $629 per month for 2-year-olds, $721 for 9-year-olds and $790 for 16-year-olds.

Florida is among the majority of states that fall below that level, the study found, with a need to raise rates by as much as 51 percent for some age groups.

Washington, D.C., which pays $940 per month for its 16-year-olds, and Arizona, which pays $879, are among the states that provide the most assistance. Ohio, which pays only $275 per month for 16-year-olds, provides the least.

The study also calculated the national averages: $488 per month for 2-year-olds, $509 for 9-year-olds and $568 per month for 16-year-olds.

'We're well below the average,' acknowledged Jeff Rainey, chief executive officer of Hillsborough Kids Inc., the private agency that oversees local foster care for the state.

The Legislature approved a $2 a day increase for the 2006-07 fiscal year, the first such increase since 1999, Rainey said.

'We're grateful they raised it,' he said. 'But foster parents need more money.'

The stipend goes toward clothing, food and shelter. But there's a lot it doesn't cover, such as baseball gloves, band uniforms, prom dresses, summer camps, movies and Busch Gardens - things that give foster children 'normal' childhoods.

Manci says her foster daughter gets an additional $300 clothing allowance for the school year, but that doesn't go far. She's at a sensitive age and doesn't want secondhand clothing.

'Kids, especially teens, want top brands,' said Joy Perez, president of the Hillsborough County Foster Parent Association, and foster mom to a 17-year-old girl. 'They already have self-esteem issues.'

Other factors aren't considered by the state, either, added Victoria Elliott, who has two foster sons and serves as president of the Suncoast Foster Parent Association. Groceries are more expensive. Gas prices fluctuate. Mortgages are rising.

The low rates hurt retention of foster homes and recruitment of foster parents, Elliott said. She supports a national minimum, but Perez said without advocates to convince lawmakers, such a plan will never work.

The Foster Care Minimum Adequate Rates for Children study was created and researched by national child advocacy groups, including Children's Rights, the University of Maryland School of Social Work and the National Foster Parent Association.

To read the full study, go to www.childrensrights.org/ hittingthemarc.

For information about becoming a foster parent and for links to foster parent associations, go to www.hillsborough kids.org or call (813) 643-KIDS (5437).

Hillsborough Kids also has a new foster parent resource specialist, Willette Hollinger, who can be reached at (813) 387-1KID (1543).