Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Monday released $918,000 in federal stimulus funds to support foster care and adoption assistance programs in Arkansas.
Adoption assistance programs will receive $470,000 and nearly $448,000 will go to foster care programs, the department said. The state Department of Human Services administers the programs.
The federal agency said increasing the federal matching rate for federal foster care and adoption assistance programs is intended to provide fiscal relief to states and help allow them to maintain core operations and undertake projects that will put Americans to work during the worst economic crisis in decades.
The funding increase is effective from Oct. 1, 2008 through Dec. 31, 2010. Part of it will count as reimbursement for expenditures the agency’s Division of Children and Family Services for the programs since Oct. 1, DHS spokeswoman Julie Munsell said.
State funding for the adoption and foster care programs draw the same 3-to-1 match in federal funds as the Medicaid health care program, Munsell said.
HHS’ Administration for Children and Families will distribute nearly $187 million nationwide for the first half of the fiscal year as part of the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage funding increase to support states’ adoption, foster care and guardianship assistance programs.
The funding represents a 6.2 percentage point increase for states under Title IV-E of the Social Security Act, HHS said.
About 3,700 children are currently in Arkansas’ foster care program, and about 6,500 enter the program over the course of a year, Munsell said. From the program, the state completes about 400 adoptions annually, she said.
For children eligible under Title IV-E, the increased funding will pay for any costs now related to health care, such as payments to foster homes and other expenses that go to caring for the child, Munsell said.
