Changes to child welfare budget process advanced

Lawmakers gave first-round approval Feb. 28 to a bill that seeks to tighten budgeting standards for the state’s child welfare system.

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.

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.

“LB949 will provide additional fiscal accountability and transparency for child welfare spending in Nebraska,” he said.

Omaha Sen. Heath Mello supported the bill, saying the inability to track the movement of funds between subprograms has presented an ongoing accountability problem for the Appropriations Committee. He said the bill would help ensure that money appropriated by the Legislature for a specific program is used for that program only.

Senators adopted a technical amendment offered by Harms on a 34-0 vote and advanced LB949 to select file 35-0.