Employment in therapeutic foster care homes.

03LSO-0278.L2

                                                         

FISCAL NOTE (SF0082)

 

 

This bill would exclude a foster parent providing foster care services for a certified child placement agency from Workers’ Compensation (WC) coverage.  The issue of whether a foster parent was considered an employee for coverage under Workers’ Compensation was raised this year when an auditor determined that some payments made to therapeutic foster care parents were wages under the unemployment and workers’ compensation programs.  The financial impact of this legislation is indeterminable.  Although the bill would seem to reduce revenue and expenditures for the Industrial Accident Fund (Workers’ Compensation), the Department of Employment does not believe that any Workers’ Compensation taxes have been paid on behalf of these individuals in the past and has no knowledge that any foster care parent has filed a WC claim.

 

Although the Department of Family Services is not an employer of therapeutic foster care providers or other foster care providers, passage of this bill should protect the agency from claims for workers’ compensation benefits by foster care providers.  The agency makes payments to those providers on behalf of the children placed with them by the courts.  There are currently 76 children in therapeutic foster care, 55 children in specialized foster care and 519 in regular foster care.  Payments on behalf of the children in foster care range from $14.50 a month to $2,400 a month depending on the needs of the child.  If current subsidy payments are considered salaries, then the Agency may be required to pay benefits to those salaries, which could result in reductions across placement and treatment of court ordered out-of-home placement or additional funding will be required. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prepared by:     Wendy Madsen, LSO            Phone:  777-7881

 

(Information provided by Beth Nelson, Department of Employment,
777-6402 and Paul Yaksic, Department of Family Services, 777-6100)