Lawsuit claims new adoption-subsidy limits illegal

Legislation passed earlier this year limits the subsidies to certain families.

ST. LOUIS -- Child welfare advocates filed a federal class-action lawsuit Monday against Gov. Matt Blunt and Missouri's social services director to try to halt adoption subsidy cuts that take effect Aug. 28 for former foster children with special needs.

The lawsuit, announced at a news conference in St. Louis, was filed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City. It accuses Blunt and Gary Sherman, director of the Missouri Department of Social Services, of failing to protect the interests of abused and neglected children.

State subsidies currently are given to the families regardless of income. Legislation passed earlier this year limits the subsidies to certain families earning less than 200 percent of the poverty level, $38,700 annually for a family of four.

Legislators subsequently passed a state budget that includes enough money to award subsidies to families earning up to 250 percent of the poverty level, $48,375 annually for a family of four.

"In addition to generous subsidies, taxpayers spent tens of millions of dollars last year alone to pay for free health-care and childcare for Missouri's adopted children, a generous program by any standard," Blunt spokesman Spence Jackson said in a statement.

The state has estimated that about 2,000 children will lose subsidies, resulting in a $12 million savings next fiscal year.

Critics say Missouri will end up spending more to keep an adoptable child in foster care.

"It's a sad day for Missouri," said John Ammann, law professor and director of the Saint Louis University Law Clinic, one of several groups that prepared the suit. He said the incentive for families to adopt foster children "is being decimated."

Currently, children adopted out of foster care in Missouri -- about 11,000 children -- are entitled under state and federal law to adoption subsidies of about $250 a month until they are 18.

Means test

Under the new law, subsidies automatically expire within a year and are subject to renewal at the discretion of the Department of Social Services. The new law also will apply a "means test" to children based on the income of their biological parents -- not their adopted ones -- regardless of how long ago they lived with them. Ammann said 1,300 children lost subsidies through this mechanism, and another 1,500 stand to lose them.

Currently, Missouri has 12,000 children in foster care; about 2,000 of them are awaiting adoption.

Child advocates say not only will the new state law end adoption payments to many families who already have adopted special-needs foster children, but it will limit the availability of subsidies to new families wanting to adopt foster children -- regardless of a child's needs.

Stephanie Rubach, who adopted three foster children with various medical needs, describes herself as a "pro-life conservative" who "campaigned vigorously" for Blunt and now feels let down by him.

"I'm quite disappointed," she said. "This is not pro-life or pro-family."

John and Sharon Antonich said their adopted son, who had been in 23 foster homes, suffers from anxiety, depression and other emotional setbacks, and has needed special tutoring to bring him closer to grade level. Without the subsidy, they cannot afford the tutorial help.

"If he lived in a group home, the state would be paying $3,000 a month for his care," John Antonich said.

Sharon Siebuhr adopted a nine-year-old alcohol-exposed girl who is losing her subsidy through "means testing." Plans to adopt a second child are now on hold.

The cuts place Missouri "in the forefront of a national trend in putting children in harm's way," said Ira Lustbader, associate director of New York-based Children's Rights Inc.

"It will save the state dollars at the expense of foster children ... who will languish in foster care."