Bill would require child welfare financial reports, strategic plan

The Health and Human Services Committee heard testimony Feb. 8 on a bill that seeks to provide fiscal accountability and transparency for child welfare spending in Nebraska.

Scottsbluff Sen. John Harms, chairperson of the Legislative Performance Audit Committee, introduced LB949 on behalf of the committee. He said the bill contains recommendations stemming from a performance audit of child welfare privatization efforts recently undertaken by the state Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

Harms said privatization was begun without a strategic plan outlining the key goals of the reform or time frames and benchmarks for achieving those goals. As a result, he said, the Legislature has had difficulty obtaining timely information about important aspects of privatization, including information on lead agency contracts.

“If you can track the money, you know where the issue is,” Harms said. “And that’s been difficult for us.”

Among other provisions, LB949 would require DHHS’s division of children and family services to include a strategic plan in its budget request to the Legislature for the next two budget cycles. The plan must identify the main purpose of each program in the division, goals for measuring progress and benchmarks and time frames for meeting those goals.

Under the bill, the division would be required to provide quarterly updates to the Legislature’s HHS and Appropriations committees beginning in October 2012 on any movement of funds greater than $250,000 into the child welfare subprogram from other budget programs.

Harms said the provision was meant to address concerns that the department had moved funds between programs in the past in ways that were difficult to track.

The bill also would require that funds for child welfare be removed from the division’s main budget and established as a separate budget program beginning in fiscal year 2013-14.

Sarah Helvey of Nebraska Appleseed testified in support of the bill. She said creating a separate budget program for child welfare and requiring regular financial reporting would prevent the kinds of situations that have caused concern in the past.

“Ongoing problems with fiscal oversight are critical and must be addressed,” she said.

No opposition testimony was given and the committee took no immediate action on the bill.