Friday, February 5, 2010

Saving The State Money

Dear friends,

I was talking with one of the governor's liaisons about money. We were talking about YOUR money.

I suggested that we were spending too much of our money in the courts, with "free" attorneys for young mothers, supervised visits, inventing stories to justify taking kids...etc.

At the same time....ONE CHILD A MONTH...dies under the auspices of CPS.

Shouldn't we be taking the "go for the throat" emphasis in stealing kids and putting those efforts into saving them? No employees lost, transfer the duties. But, we relieve the courts for the 30% of those kids taken that really need to be placed elsewhere. Win. Win.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm curious about the statement "no employees lost, just transfer the duties"..

See thats the hole the state is stuck in right now..you cant trim fat without cutting jobs. Lets say you find 10,000 people with jobs everyone agrees are completely useless. If you trim the fat there that is 10,000 people out of work. The taxpayers still end up paying for them through unemployment and the like..but now they are officially doing nothing and prob sharpening their pitchforks and have lots of free time to get drunk or whatever. 10,000 people who, lets be honest, are prob not qualified to do anything else but be a useless bureaucrat or you wouldnt have fired them in the first place.

Same problem with the war. If we stopped the war today and brought the troops home you'd have all those troops plus the support services sitting around doing nothing.

CPS is a jobs program. It gives people an income and/or a purpose. It gives crack addict mothers and unemployee grandparents something positive to do that likely saves us money since the state doesnt need to babysit those people as much while they are motivated to care for their children.

The real question is can we give these people a purpose AND ensure the children arnt sold down the river in the process. The only way to do that IMHO is a some sort of group living arrangement where the group can watch over individuals and compensate for errors.

Anonymous said...

If you think that children should not be removed from abusive and neglectful parents and be placed in foster care, please visit the foster homes. Please ask the foster parents how the children were like when they first came into foster care. You have absolutely no idea how some children are treated by their parents. Whether it is due to drugs, alcohol or mental illness, there are some people that do not deserve to be parents.

Anonymous said...

I think there needs to be more balance. The jobs would not be lost if it were changed to family preservation. There is more than enough need for that to sustain employment.
Right now, I know of two families that need their children removed but you won't see me picking up the phone. Why? Because calling CPS for any reason can be used against you later through manipulating the facts and reasons for calling. If you pick up that phone and call CPS for any reason, you are asking for trouble in your own family. I was a mandatory reporter but they used my phone calls to make me look unstable regarding my own family. I wasn't calling about my family, but they tried to make it sound like I was and used it to divide and conquer. They told my daughter I was calling about her.

Anonymous said...

I am a foster parent who lost their license for opposing DSHS placement.

AS far as I can tell I am the only person here that believes some people dont deserve to be parents.

Never the less until we are open to massive change, which our government isnt built to accept, we gotta play with the cards we got.

When the huge earthquake come and wipes out the career politicians - lets change the system..until then we got to play with the game we got..whining about it aint going to change it and no one here is going to assemble an armed militia in large enough numbers to change government.

Until there is a chance for massise change the only way to make a diff is to be covert

gorillamum said...

I agree. Jobs can be saved by directing them toward family preservation. In my family if you are disabled and female you are worthless. That's how my 3 Republican brothers think. Yet they feel they are above the law. If they are going to preserve families they need to re-educate people like this. But the way their funding polices are curently they have to "sell" these children. Here's an idea; Let's stop the policy of "You have to spend it to get it!"

Anonymous said...

Dear Madam Senator,

Speaking of saving the State of Washington money..

Did you know that people that adopt children from the state are offered their own stimulus package to do so? And that the adopters can re-negotiate with the state every so often?

If the child is 6 yrs. old or older before adoption..they are considered "special needs" That means the adopter gets extra money for that adoption. That also means that Washington State gets some federal dollars as well.

Did you know that the residents of Washington State are paying for their medical insurance until they are 18 years of age..or older..depending on certain circumstances? I think that I may put in a FOIA request on that and just see how much the state puts out yearly just for that one.

Did you know that some or most adopters get a monthly stipend for adopting these children?

I believe that if people are going to adopt children from this system
they should not be given a thin dime.

WHY? When you have a biological child, you never know what you are going to get. Why should adopters be any different?

How sick it is that people have to be bribed to adopt children. It is even sicker that the state perpetuates this by offering money.

Did you know that any child that has been in the system for a certain period of time..that their college is paid for by the state?

There are many more items such as this..to numerous to mention..that costs the state a bundle..not to mention the numerous law suits. Which by the by should come directly out of DSHS's operational budget (I know this would still come out of the pockets of taxpayers)

I believe that is why the department could care less how many times it gets sued for their actions. Maybe operating on a diminished budget would make the department re-evauluate some or all of their actions.

As I have said in previous posts..it is all about the money.

gorillamum said...

After going through the Foster Parenting classes I learned that these foster Parents are mainly there for a free adoption. And yes, they can claim "Special Cirumstances" and continue to collect money from the State. This needs to stop. Here's a good campain slogan for you Senator "Stop Foster To Adopt!"