COUNTY OF SAN MATEO

Inter-Departmental Correspondence

County Manager’s Office

DATE:

March 23, 2005

BOARD MEETING DATE:

March 29, 2005

VOTE REQUIRED:

Majority

TO:

Honorable Board of Supervisors

FROM:

John Maltbie, County Manager

SUBJECT:

Adoption of Kinship GAP Resolution

RECOMMENDATION:

Adopt a resolution in support of legislation to amend the California Kin-GAP statute to provide a clothing allowance and special care rates option for relative guardians.

VISION ALIGNMENT:

Commitment: Ensure basic health and safety for all.

Goal(s): All children grow up healthy in safe and supportive homes and neighborhoods.

Performance Measure(s):

Measure

FY 2004-05
Actual

FY 2005-06
Projected

NA

BACKGROUND:

The Kinship Guardianship Assistance Payment (Kin-GAP) program was established in 1998 by SB 1901 in an attempt to move children out of the foster care system and into permanent guardianship placements.

DISCUSSION:

Existing law provides kin caregivers with the same benefits as non-kin foster care providers while a child is dependent. However, if the relative chooses to become the child’s guardian, they receive the board and care rate for the child excluding the additional allowances for clothing or special care increments.

In San Mateo County, if one-half of the existing relative caregivers opted into the Kin-GAP program, the additional cost for clothing allowance would be approximately $24,000 annually. However, the savings accrued from closing the cases to child welfare supervision and reducing the eligibility renewal requirements would most likely cover these increased costs.

Significant numbers of children can safely exit the child welfare system but do not do so because many of their relative caregivers, who are otherwise eligible and willing, decline Kin-GAP due to the financial disincentive. In San Mateo County, approx-imately 50% of the kin caregivers do not wish to become guardians because of the financial disincentive. Child welfare agencies continue to carry the workload associated with these cases in terms of case management responsibilities, reporting requirements, compliance with foster care regulatory rules, etc. Further, these foster children fail to gain the normalcy of permanent legal attachments without being associated with the foster care system.

With regard to the special care increments, these are not approved for every case. However, if one-half of the new Kin-GAP providers had children qualifying for the special care increment at an average rate of $500 annually, then an estimate of the cost would be $15,000 per month. These costs would be shared along federal, state and local sharing ratios (50/20/30 respectively).

FISCAL IMPACT:

Providing Kin-GAP caregivers with the same benefits as kin and non-kin relative caregivers will result in an approximate projected cost of $24,000 for clothing allowances ($14,000 net county cost) and an approximate projected annual cost of $180,000 for special care increments ($54,000 net county cost), some of which will be offset by a decrease in staffing costs related to the maintenance of these cases.