Lucas County Children Services said they will be forced to cut a program that helps kids stay out of foster care and trim valuable staff if a levy they’re seeking on the November ballot fails.
Dean Sparks, executive director of LCCS, said the agency has already frozen enrollment and will eliminate the $180,000-a-year program that provides financial support to relatives who care for kids if the levy does not pass. The program’s end will force more children into the foster care system, Sparks said.
The agency is asking for voters to renew and extend its current 1.4 mill levy set to expire in 2016, and support an additional 0.35 mills, through 2018. The levy is a property tax that will cost the owner of a $100,000 house $54.25. Residents now pay $42 at the current millage.
Sparks said the agency has cut its spending this year from $46.5 million to $40 million in order to maintain its services and has had little help from the state and federal government. He has seen a “significant reduction” in state and federal dollars, placing the burden for financial support on local institutions.
“The State of Ohio is the 50th in the nation in support of child protection; and that’s something that we in Ohio are going to have to struggle with,” Sparks said. “We used to have 405, now we have 349 staff people. We can’t cut anymore. The next cut is staff and services.”
The renewal and additional levy will raise $11.8 million to meet its $42.5 million budget. The agency will see about 12,000 children this year and will handle 5,000 new reports of abuse and neglect in Lucas County.
Most of the children the agency serves are five years old and younger; however they are seeing more older kids due to the fact that they deal more with juvenile court by helping kids gain independent living outside of foster care.
The “faces” of the kids are changing: they come with more needs; they have more siblings; more require institutional care; LCCS keeps more kids until they are 21 years old to guide them through high school, college and into the workforce.
Many of the LCCS children have special needs such as autism, developmental issues or behavorial issues. Some children have parents who are victims of domestic abuse, have a mental illness or lack stable housing. Some 100-plus children were trafficked in Lucas County.
“We’re seeing 9-year-olds that are homicical and suicidal and kids getting suspended from kindergarten,” Sparks said.
The levy is also about kids who have been affected by heroin, either addicted at birth or with parents who are addicted.
Sparks said the agency is seeing success in its foster care program in which more kids are graduating high school than ever before and more kids are entering college from foster care than in the past. The figures are dim: a third end up homeless and another third in the criminal justice system.
LCCS has a “very dedicated” staff of 200 case workers, Sparks said. If the case workers are unable to help the children now then they will return in the criminal justice system later.
“The citizens of Lucas County have always been supportive,” he said. “They have always cared about kids.”
Senior Levy
Billie Johnson, president and CEO of the Area Office on Aging Northwestern Ohio, has requested a 5-year renewal of the agency’s 0.45 mill levy that expires at the end of the year, as well as an increase of 0.15 mills.
“It’s a modest increase of 0.15 mills. I say modest because last year we never got the money we were certified (by the auditor) to receive,” Johnson said. “That’s the reason we went out for more money.”
The auditor tells applicants what dollar amount they can expect to receive at a certain millage. Johnson said her agency received $3.5 million this year from its levy, a million less than expected.
The agency needs the money, Johnson said, to meet growing demand from an 11 percent increase in the Lucas County senior citizen population since 2010 and for its four main areas of service: nutrition, Alzheimer’s care, home care and senior center services.
“We use the levy to match federal and state dollars,” Johnson said. “When we don’t get the money, you can’t deliver the services.”
Ninety-two cents of every dollar goes toward program costs and eight cents toward operating costs, Johnson said.
“(The levy) is really very important,” Johnson said. “We have pretty close to 50 agencies that get this money and if they don’t get these dollars, they will really have to cut services and maybe eliminiate some. It’s not all of their funding, but a good portion. Most of the agencies’ funding were reduced since 2009, close to 15 percent, when at the same time, our population increased.”
Mental Health Levy
Mental Health Recovery and Services Board is seeking to renew a 10-year, 0.50-mill levy.
The agency said it anticipates about 26,000 Lucas County residents will receive treatment for mental illness or addiction in fiscal year 2014, a 4 percent increase over the previous year.
Executive Director Scott Sylak said he expects the levy, if it passes, will generate $3.4 million dollars.
Sylak said the agency lost $2.6 million in state and federal funds this year. Last fiscal year, the legislature put an additional $50 million in the budget of which the agency received a portion. That money was later retracted, Sylak said.
“We still have a tremendous need for services,” Sylak said. “Not only treatment but support that helps stabilize individuals on their meds and help them recover from their addiction.”
One in four families are affected by mental illness. A “significant” number are in jails and have contact with law enforcement, Sylak said.
“Voters have been generous in the past,” he said. “We want to keep that momentum moving foward and prove that the services are needed.”
The levy funds will help the agency address the heroin epidemic, allow them to continue to help people — 3,700 last year — negotiate a “significant crisis;” provide emergency shelter; help house 600 individuals who would be in a shelter, and fund training for law enforcement, among other services.
“We fund a network of 21 agencies that employ 1,600 individuals,” Sylak said. “We will loose services. If this levy is not renewed, we will cut $3.4 milion dollars out of our budget. That will absolutely affect people. We are trying to get the word out.”
The agency, in order to be a good steward of tax dollars, took an internal look at itself and lowered administrative costs in 2007.
Ninety-four cents of every dollar collected by the levy goes toward its network.
Sylak said they are seeing benefits from the levy money. More people are being released from hospitals and they are seeing a “good return” on treatment.
“We recognize we have a lot of work to do,” Sylak said. “Every service we fund has an outcome and we monitor that twice a year.”
