State lawmakers gave Louisiana foster parents more money — or so they thought

Shane Purvis of Loranger told lawmakers at Monday’s meeting of the Senate Select Committee on Women and Children that his wife drove more than 1,000 miles in June taking the youngest of their three foster children, an 8-year-old boy, to various appointments.

“Where was she going?” Purvis said. “To the doctor, to the therapist, to the dentist, to the weekly parents’ meetings, to summer school back and forth. That’s being taken away.”

Danielle Eley, a foster parent from Franklin Parish who’s caring for three children, told the committee she expected to get $6,500 less from the state over the next year following the reimbursement changes. 

DCFS Secretary Rebecca Harris was at the committee meeting and listened to foster parents air their grievances for more than an hour before lawmakers asked her to explain why the reimbursements were halted. She said the goal of increasing board rates was to cover all of the incidental costs for families so they didn’t have to file so many expenses with her agency.

“I may not have been clear with that,” Harris said.

Harris and DFCS Undersecretary Christopher Bahm did not mention any reimbursement changes when they made their budget request presentations to the legislature in March. The foster care board rate increase they sought was only the second one the state has issued in nearly two decades, according to Bahm.

“If we expect stability for our children, we must fund stability,” he told the Senate Finance Committee on March 23. “By increasing foster care board rates, that is a direct lever to increase recruitment and retention of foster families, and it ensures that the caregivers responsible for day-to-day support have the resources they need.”

Eley said DCFS leaders packaged the updated board rate as an increase when it was actually a consolidation or reallocation. In addition to her role as a foster parent, Eley leads a nonprofit organization that offers services to 35 foster families.

“They’re scared. They’re worried,” she said. “They feel discredited, discounted, overlooked, unimportant and used.”

Lawmakers also found problems with the DCFS leaders’ unilateral decision to end foster care reimbursements. State law requires the agency to first obtain approval for any such changes from the legislature’s two health and welfare committees.

“That’s a little disturbing that we were trying to [increase board rates], and this was going to cause hardships for these foster families,” Rep. Kimberly Coates, R-Ponchatoula, told Harris.

Sen. Patrick McMath, R-Covington, asked the DCFS secretary to resume reimbursements, at least through the remainder of the fiscal year that ends June 30, 2027, and she agreed to do so. 

“It seems like, based on the testimony we’ve heard today, that we’re making it harder to be a foster parent in Louisiana with this change in policy,” McMath said.

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