Budget Bill Increases Department of Child Services Funding

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The Indiana State Senate approved a nearly $34.5 billion state budget, today.

Indiana works on a biennial budget, meaning every two years the state legislature votes on allocating billions of dollars to the state’s general fund.

The 2020-2021 budget is nearly $3 billion more than the budget approved for 2018-2019, including an increase in funding for the Department of Child Services. The proposed increase comes as the number of children in out-of-home care continues to rise, year after year.

The new budget includes a DSC funding increase of about 25 percent, over the next fiscal year. Along with an increase in funding, the legislature passed a measure regulating the caseload for DCS family case managers, which also increases the time a caseworker can spend with each case.

The changes in funding and policy reflect the growing number of cases DCS has encountered in recent years. An assessment of DCS by the Child Welfare Policy and Practice Group reported an 89 percent increase in the number of children in out-of-home child care, between 2005-2017. The study cited the nationwide opioid crisis as a major contributor to the increase in children in state custody.

Former Department of Child Services Director Mary Beth Bonaventura also cited the opioid crisis as a major burden for the agency. In her public resignation letter to Governor Eric Holcomb in 2017, Bonaventura also cited budgetary concerns and the strain of case loads faced by the agency.

The two-year budget bill, House Bill 1001, passed its third reading in the Senate, today. HB 1001 will now need to be reconciled with a similar State Senate budget bill in conference committee, over the next couple weeks. Once those bills are reconciled in conference committee, a final budget will be sent to Gov. Holcomb.