By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com
Crawford County Children Services will have to run on fumes to get through the end of the year. That was the message that came out of Wednesday’s meeting between the county commissioners, Auditor Robin Hildebrand, and representatives from Crawford County Job and Family Services (CCJFS).
Children Services is currently is the position of having to find funds while still assisting an increasing number of abused and neglected children.
“Child welfare is in crisis. That’s the bottom line,” stated Crawford County Job and Family Services Director Linda Bassett. “It’s underfunded in a big way. It’s absolutely statewide.”
In August, Crawford County had 38 children in residential housing, up from 23 in July. On the other end of the spectrum, the number of children in foster homes decreased between July and August from 38 to 18.
It cost Children Services $132,000 in August to house 38 children in residential housing, a figure that is the highest Fiscal Administrator Melinda Crall-Cauley has ever seen. Children in residential facilities are given 24-hour care by staff and, oftentimes, the price to put a child into residential housing can cost hundreds of dollars per day.
As of Wednesday, Children Services had a cash balance of $115,768, though that number was expected to drop to $91,415 after the agency paid its bills for the week. The agency does have an additional $398,000 in spending authority appropriations that it could access to pay for the residential housing.
Hildebrand asked Crall-Cauley and Bassett if the agency would be able to operate through the end of the year with only its available cash balance and appropriations while also deferring its random moment payments. Random moments are time studies of what case workers are doing at any given moment in time.
“I think we’ll be a little short on cash, to be honest with you,” Crall-Cauley said. “Appropriation will be fine as long as we don’t pay the random moment.”
“I am concerned about the deficit going into 2015,” she added.
“Purposefully, that is my goal,” Commissioner Steve Reinhard said, “to shift it from one year to the next. Because number one, I think coming through this year we’re going to have a lot of obligations.”
Reinhard believed the county had a number of retirements upcoming and a court case that may soon be on the books that could add extra expenses to the county budget.
“That’s my goal is to get us through the end of this year and then start over again next year and we’ll have a better idea of where our . . . sales tax ends up through the end of the year,” Reinhard said.
A levy is a possible option, though it is beyond a short-term option. The current levy, which has brought in $233,000 for 2014, will expire at the end of this year.
Hildebrand discussed pulling money from the general fund but she saw major issues arising from that.
“The long-term issue is there is not enough money to support it. The current rate, if it stays on this pattern, it’s just a matter of time. We can keep giving money but then the general fund’s broke.”
“The answer can’t be we’re just going to throw more money at it,” Hildebrand said. “Eventually, it’s going to intersect . . . There’s just not enough money.”
If that trend continued, Hildebrand believed the money from the agency’s general fund would run out within five years.
Children Services will be funded through the end of the year through $398,000 in appropriations and the remaining cash balance. The commissioners will meet with CCJFS in mid-October for a budget hearing for 2015.