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The Foster Care Program helps States to provide safe and stable out-of-home care for children until the children are safely returned home, placed permanently with adoptive families or placed in other planned arrangements for permanency. Authorized under title IV-E of the Social Security Act, as amended, the Foster Care Maintenance Payments Program provides Federal matching funds of 50 to 83 percent, depending on the state's per capita income. Funding is contingent upon an approved State plan to administer or supervise the administration of the program. The State must submit yearly estimates of program expenditures as well as quarterly reports of estimated and actual program expenditures. Funds are available for: monthly maintenance payments to eligible foster care providers; administrative costs to manage the program; training staff and foster parents; foster parent recruitment; and other related expenses.
The fifty (50) States, District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are eligible to participate in the Foster Care Program awards. Children in foster care numbered 523,000 in FFY 2003 (the most recent year for which data is available).
The program is funded at 4,643,000,000 for FY 2006.
Title IV-E Foster Care Eligibility Reviews
Full implementation of the final regulatory rule for the monitoring review advanced the Federal government’s efforts in partnering with States to improve overall management of the foster care eligibility program and to secure safer foster care placements for children. Implementation also assisted our efforts in fulfilling our oversight responsibilities and in decreasing erroneous Federal payments to States. States responded to the monitoring reviews by initiating program assessments and improvements to meet compliance standards in anticipation of the reviews or by developing and implementing program improvements as a result of the reviews.
For FFY 2000 – FFY 2004, seventy-three (73) eligibility reviews were conducted of State foster care systems, which consisted of sixty-eight (68) initial and subsequent primary reviews and five (5) secondary reviews. Forty-nine (49), or sixty-seven per cent (67%), of the seventy-three (73) State reviews were determined to be in substantial compliance with Federal requirements. The total amount disallowed for erroneously claimed payments for foster care maintenance and administrative costs that were identified during the reviews is $14 million.
