The Indiana State Adoption Subsidy Waiting List is allowing our Governor and CPS Director to ROB our children!

by Angie Ryan Finney on Wednesday, September 15, 2010 at 8:02am

Children, MOVE to TOP PRIORITY:


Before you read this and attach any preconceived notions, I assure you that this has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with, allow me to repeat, NOTHING to do with the proposed 10% cuts to adoption subsidies for those families already getting subsidies. This is about families who ADOPTED AFTER 2009 that may NEVER get ANY of the PROMISED State adoption subsidies due to the creation of the Indiana State Adoption Subsidy WAITING LIST. Very few people even know about it's creation but I am confident that once our Democratic Leaders become aware of this information, they will not ONLY appropriate money for the Waiting List, but will also bring to light one of the ways that our Governor has 'saved Indiana money'.


The Indiana State Adoption Subsidy Waiting List is allowing our Governor and CPS Director to ROB our children! In Indiana, prior to 2009, pre-adoptive parents of children in foster care where the children did not qualify for Federal Adoption Subsidy, would apply through their local counties to attempt approval for ‘State Adoption Subsidy’. Local power and funding over these decisions regarding the subsidy was fully removed by January 2009 and taken over by the State of Indiana which in turn implemented a complete over-haul. All foster children that do not CURRENTLY meet the Federal Adoption Subsidy eligibility requirements can either remain in foster care until their age finally meets the Federal Transition Program ( 1 footnote ) where eligibility will be phased in by age over the next nine years for those STILL NOT adopted, or Indiana’s children in foster care may get lucky. These children may GET ADOPTED by parents who will trust Indiana’s leaders to recognize that the State Adoption Subsidy Waiting List ( 2 footnote ) needs to be Funded to enable these adoptive parents to provide for these needy children. These children have now been adopted after January 2009 and are in limbo on the Subsidy Waiting List. These children ARE ELIGIBLE and WAITING for Indiana State Adoption Subsidy BUT the DCS budget restraints caused by political priorities, have contributed to the decision of NOT allotting funding to the Subsidy Waiting List.

Shortly after January 2009, Indiana's leaders realized that their short-lived solution to State Adoption Subsidy had created disdain among every child advocate that became aware of the State Adoption Subsidy guidelines for anyone applying after January 2009. The problem WAS that Indiana had set the same guidelines for Indiana State Adoption Subsidy that would qualify a child for Federal Adoption Subsidy (a.k.a. Title IV-E). When this became apparent that this would cause Indiana to not have to pay any State Adoption Subsidy for those children adopted after Jan. 2009, some 'child-robbers' swept in and came up with the MOST RECENT PLAN that has NOW been implemented; Lower the age for Indiana State Adoption Subsidy to age 2. For any child adopted after January 2009 that does not qualify for Federal Adoption Subsidy, but will now be eligible for Indiana State Adoption Subsidy, DISCLOSE and reveal the eligibility for State Adoption Subsidy but include a 'State Governments way-out of paying the subsidy' stipulation. This stipulation is the creation of the ‘Indiana State Adoption SUBSIDY WAITING LIST’:

On the Indiana State Adoption Subsidy Agreement page, stipulate that the adoptive parents understand that they are being placed on a 'Waiting List' and will not receive any Indiana State Adoption Subsidy until the list works it way down to their children's names. It 'sounds' terrific, doesn't it? Especially if the list is created by order of the most needy or a first come first serve basis.

Finally, herein lies the problem; according to my sources from CPS and other child advocates, with Governor Mitch Daniels awareness, CPS (a.k.a. DCS) Director James Payne determined that for this current biennium budget, the Indiana State Adoption Subsidy Waiting List would receive ZERO dollars. Therefore, ALL of the children that are on the Waiting List and have been officially approved to receive
Indiana State Adoption Subsidy, are ALL being denied the Indiana State Adoption Subsidy!

Can you please speak to everyone that you know about revealing this heart wrenching, stomach curdling revelation about the lack of value Indiana's leaders have placed on some of our MOST neediest children?

Please do whatever is in your power to ensure that the Indiana State Adoption Subsidy Waiting List receives specific, allocated, appropriated, and complete funding to provide for these needy, adopted children. You should be aware of the fact that the adoption subsidy that will be provided from the ‘Waiting List’ fund is already set for the very basic of minimum state adoption subsidy.

Please fund the State Adoption Subsidies that are only available if there are sufficient funds in the Adoption Assistance Account established under IC 31-19-26.5-10.

If our leaders cannot solve this problem for the very basic reason of allowing for our most troubled and suffered children to be adopted into a loving forever family, will they consider that if they choose to not help these children now, a lot of them may end up needing prison beds later!

Most people in Indiana are not aware that our governor is a contributor to this atrocity. If our nation knew that our governor could take candy from our babies and sweep the whole situation under the rug to paint such a pretty economic picture, would they ever have considered that anyone would want him to run for president?

Thank you for your time and efforts put forth into Indiana’s forgotten children. Your impact will make a huge difference in the lives of these children and our communities’ future.
Sincerely,
Angela Finney

( 1 ) http://www.nacac.org/policy/MoEBriefJuly09.pdf Page 2, See top of page, the section titled Transition to Full Federal Eligibility
 
( 2 ) http://www.in.gov/dcs/files/Admin_Letter_Adoption.pdf Page 6, Section 6, Subsection C: State Adoption Subsidies are only available if there are sufficient funds in the Adoption Assistance Account established under IC 31-19-26.5-10