Policy Updates

2011 Session Update

Oregon’s 76th Legislative Session was a difficult session for Oregon lawmakers and for our state. While we faced a $3.5 billion budget shortfall, the Legislature lacked the political will to find additional revenue. As a result, we saw significant cuts in programs that protect children and strengthen families.

Children First for Oregon was working until the last moment to protect Oregon’s children. The following is an overview – with highlights and lowlights – of what proved to be a very difficult legislative session.

Keeping Children Healthly

Health Care Exchange Legislation: Oregon was able to reach compromise and pass SB 99 enabling a state-run health insurance exchange – something many states have failed to accomplish. Over the next two years, Oregon will design and implement this tool to help families and small businesses gain access to health coverage.

Outreach for Children’s Health Care: The Legislature cut $6.7 million in outreach dollars for the Healthy Kids program, making it harder to locate and enroll eligible children in this landmark program, thus reducing the number of children with access to health care.

Safety Net Capacity Grant program: The Legislature reduced this critical health delivery program for children who are not Medicaid eligible by 70%. The Safety Net Capacity Grant program was the only funding available for more than 13,000 low income children who are not eligible for Medicaid assistance and who have no other option but the Emergency Room. Because of this drastic cut, health care centers who treat these children will no longer be reimbursed, causing budget overruns, and health care for over 9,000 children is now at risk.

School Based Health Centers: Children First is happy to report that $500,000 of funding was restored to School Based Health Centers (SBHC), which provide health care services to kids at school. This means 50,000 children who utilize Oregon’s 55 certified SBHCs will continue to receive care and sites across 22 counties will continue to be funded.

School Food Programs: While $600,000 in unused school breakfast money was diverted to other programs, legislators did reinvest in these school food programs for kids. Children First advocated for these two separate grant programs to enhance school nutrition and nutritional education:

SB 480 provides grant funds to school districts to implement After School Meal and Snack programs.
HB 2800 supports the Farm-To-School program, which allows school districts to purchase Oregon food products and provides funding for food-based, agriculture-based and garden-based educational activities.

Keeping Children Safe

Tuition Assistance for Former Foster Youth: Children First’s youth-led program, the Oregon Foster Youth Connection, proposed and helped to pass HB 3471, which grants tuition waivers to youth who “age-out” of foster care at 18, or who are adopted after the age of 16. This will benefit hundreds of children who want to pursue higher education, but who lack the financial and emotional support that most youth receive from their families.

Staffing Levels: DHS Staffing levels have been reduced to 68%. This means two people will be doing the job of three; the result is less safety for children in the State’s custody. Already, caseworkers are not meeting their face-to-face requirements with foster kids 30% of the time. This situation will only get worse as additional critical positions are left vacant.

Family Support and Connections: Children First was successful in restoring funding for the Family Support and Connections (FSC) program, which is a voluntary home visitation service for families working on parenting skills or other barriers to a safe home. This program supports families receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and works to prevent child welfare interventions. The Legislature originally proposed cuts that would have eliminated FSC services for 2,500 families whose children would instead likely enter foster care.

Strengthening, Preserving and Reunifying Families program: SB 964 creates the Strengthening, Preserving and Reunifying Families program, which will provide family preservation and reunification services through public private-partnerships for residential treatment, supervised housing, and extended family placements. These programs help to keep families together when appropriate and safe, avoid or limit a child’s placement in foster care. A safe and stable family gives children the best chance at a healthy, productive, and happy life.

Keep Kids Safe license plate: Children First helped pass HB 3684 to establish a Keep Kids Safe license plate to raise money for child abuse prevention programs. The plates will be printed at no cost to the State and proceeds will go to the Children’s Trust Fund of Oregon Foundation to help fund local child abuse prevention programs.

Children First also helped pass these additional bills that have the potential to make a big difference for kids:

HJM 12 urges the President to establish a Whitehouse Council on Youth.
HB 3584 helps ensure that foster parents will get assistance providing culturally appropriate assistance for children in their care.

Strengthening Families

Employment Related Day Care: Children First was able to prevent the most dire of cuts to the Employment Related Day Care (ERDC) program, which helps families afford to work by providing child care assistance to low-income, working parents. The Legislature reduced this program from 10,000 families to 9,000. In a last-minute deal, we were able to get an additional $6.5 million for this vital day care assistance, which will allow ERDC to eventually cover 10,000 families by the end of the budget cycle. This is still short of the coverage for 11,000 families proposed by the Governor and the 12,000 families who are estimated to need ERDC during 2011-13.

TANF Lifetime Limits: Children First was successful in preventing potentially disastrous cuts to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program that would have instituted a lifetime limit of 18 months rather than the federal limit of five years. This proposed cut would have made Oregon’s support program the shortest in the nation, punishing parents struggling in the poor economy, destabilizing families, and driving more children into foster care.

JOBS Services and TANF supports: The Legislature still made significant cuts in services that help families gain financial stability, such as job training programs that address parents’ barriers to employment. As a result of cutting services that help families climb out of poverty, we will see more families on TANF for a longer period of time. We will also see more Oregonians unemployed as Jobs Opportunity and Basic Skills (JOBS) program providers lay off 322 staff.

Early Learning Council: We supported SB 909 to create an Early Learning Council as part of the Governor’s effort to improve and streamline the state’s education system. The Early Learning Council will research the best practices of programs that serve at-risk families and offer suggestions to the 2012 Legislature for improving programs that serve children ages 0-5.

Children First 2011 Legislative Priorities

Here is what we’re working on for the 2011 legislative session:

Keeping children healthy

Ensure the new Health Insurance Exchange is good for kids and families. We want a clear, easy to use interface where families can access subsidies and kids maintain the high level of coverage they have now under Healthy Kids.

Protect School Based Health Centers from budget cuts that undermine health access for kids. We want to ensure that no SBHC closes, which would limit kids access to physical, mental, preventative and in some cases dental health services.

Keeping children safe

Provide tuition waivers for former foster youth to access higher education. We want to make sure college is financially attainable for former foster youth.

Protect funding for child welfare prevention programs that reduce foster care placements. We want to maintain prevention programs for parents that reduce costs and improve outcomes for vulnerable kids.
Increase access to Independent Living Programs so youth are prepared when transitioning out of foster care. We want to ensure all eligible kids who want ILP services get the help they need.

Strengthening families

Protect the Employment Related Day Care assistance program so day care is affordable to working parents. We want to protect ERDC for 10,000 working families, giving kids safe child care arrangements and parents stability to remain employed.

Protect TANF for extremely low income children. We want to protect this children’s poverty program to ensure kids do not end up homeless in during the recession.

Maintain School Food programs so kids are healthy, ready to learn. We want to maintain eligibility levels for Oregon students needing to access food at school.

Expand Earned Income Tax Credit to help Oregon’s lowest income kids and their families. We want to use this targeted and effective approach to make Oregon’s tax system fairer for low- and moderate-income working families, giving them and their communities a much needed boost.

Children First for Oregon 2010 State Legislative Session Wrap-up

The 2010 special session has come to an end and CFFO had HUGE VICTORIES in this tough economy!

A special THANK YOU to those of you who wrote or called your legislators. Your emails and calls to your legislators over the past few weeks were heard.

We must also remember that no victory is possible without strong leadership at the Capitol. Join us in sending a well deserved thank you to those who helped make this happen! Click HERE to send your legislator a Thank You !

Keeping Children Healthy

Expanded Oregon Health Plan coverage to former foster youth:

While in foster care, children have all their health care needs covered. Previously, at age 18, foster youth became solely responsible for themselves almost overnight. These Oregon kids who have been abused or neglected found they had little or no support when they became young adults.

Foster youth are considered to be a population with special health care needs by the American Academy of Pediatrics because of the high prevalence of medical, mental health and developmental issues. Providing health coverage alleviates one major challenge for these youth as they transition out of state care and into adulthood.

Legislative Victory! CFFO organized members of the Oregon Foster Youth Connection (OFYC) and Juvenile Rights Project (JRP) to bring compelling testimony to legislators all month and YOU sent emails and made calls. Our hard work paid off when HB3664 passed unanimously out of the House and passed with a 24-6 vote out of the Senate! Youth who age out of foster care at 18 will now continue to receive the same health coverage they had while in foster care, which means they can even keep their same medical and mental health providers!!

Special thanks to Representative Greenlick, and the House Health Care Committee for sponsoring HB3664. Also thank you to Representative Kotek, Representative Buckley the Department of Human Services and the Office of Healthy Kids for securing funding for this expansion.

Click HERE to see how your legislator voted on HB 3664. Click HERE to send them a Thank You.

Bill to protect children from synthetic estrogens in children’s products voted down in the Senate::

Bisphenol-A (BPA) is a synthetic estrogen found in plastic which leaches out into food and beverages, and then into our bodies. More than 200 scientific studies have linked very low doses of BPA to prostate and breast cancer, obesity, altered brain development, cardiac disease, diabetes, and early puberty. The bill would have banned bisphenol A in food and beverage containers intended for the use of children under 3, including baby bottles.

More work to do next session: Legislators and advocates fought hard to remove BPA from products specifically for children under 3 years old, but the bill was voted down in the Senate. Advocates will continue this charge to protect Oregon’s smallest citizens from this harmful product.

Strengthening Families:

Extended funding for Employment Related Day Care (ERDC) until 2011:

ERDC helps families with incomes below 185% of poverty (about $40,800 per year for a family of four) pay for child care. Affordable, quality childcare is essential to the well being of children, the economic stability of families, and the productivity of businesses from large to small.

The original 09-11 budget only funded ERDC through July 2010, when severe budget reductions would have left an estimated 2,913 families (5,500 children) without child care. The parents of these children would have been forced to either leave children home alone or quit their jobs.

Legislative Victory!: CFFO, child care providers, child care recipients, YOU and other advocates joined forces to make sure legislators knew that ERDC keeps kids healthy and safe, and that it keeps parents working. In the end, legislative leadership heard our messages and extended funding for ERDC to 2011!

Special Thanks to House Speaker Dave Hunt and Representative Tina Kotek for their strong support on this issue. Thanks also goes to the Senate Commerce and Workforce Development Committee and the House Sub-Committee on Workforce for highlighting this as a jobs issue.

Paved way for expanded use of the Earned Income Tax Credit:

The federal EITC has been the most successful anti-poverty program, lifting over 2 million American children out of poverty every year. Oregon currently has one of the lowest levels of state EITC, not fully utilizing the federal max. Passing this bill would bring Oregon in line with the majority of states, eliminating income taxes on families below the poverty line with one or more children. Lifting families out of poverty gives children the best chance at a healthy, safe, and successful life.

More work to do next session: Hearing rooms were packed with supporters wearing “have a heart” stickers. Legislators heard eloquent testimony from Oregonians who have been helped by EITC and legislators recognize that this tax credit is what low- income, working families need to make it in a tough economy. The informational hearings were a huge success and both advocates and legislators will be working hard over the coming months to have a strong proposal for the 2011 session.

Download a one page summary of the 2010 Legislative Wrap Up.pdf