MOUNT VERNON—The children services unit at Knox County Job & Family Services continues to struggle with high placement costs as it seeks to place children in safe environments.
Children Services had a budget of $5.9 million in 2021, which steadily rose to $6.178 million in 2024.
The 2025 budget is $6.687 million.
Much of the increase is due to higher placement costs.
The county pays for children in its care up to age 18 — and sometimes beyond 18.
“If they have special needs or they’re in a continuing education type of environment, we might keep them until they’re 20, 21, 22 or so,” KCJFS Director Scott Boone said.
In 2024, JFS placed children with 15 kinship providers and in 11 foster homes licensed by another network.
The cost for a child in a JFS foster home is $23.28 daily. For network placements, the county pays between $75 and $200 a day, depending on the child’s needs.
A residential or group setting costs the county between $295 and $1,000 a day.
Those numbers do not include clothing, special activities, or costs not covered by Medicaid.
KCJFS has 26 active foster homes licensed by KCJFS.
“That does not include foster homes that might be licensed by private foster care networks,” said Danielle Crider, administrator of Children Services.
“We continue to try to increase that number so that we can continue to keep kids in the community near their parents, their school, their support network.
“The majority are in Knox County, but we have a few outliers that have chosen to license with us,” she said.
“Kinship placements cost less, but we still have those 10 or 12 that are in the $400- to $500-dollars-a-day range that are higher-needs kids. That’s what eats up the majority of that budget,” Boone said.
‘Astronomical’ placement costs strain the budget
Boone cited a 7-year-old who lived in the JFS office for a month because of behavioral issues.
“He’s been through every type of abuse and neglect that you can imagine. Danielle and her foster care staff went through over 100 placement referrals and were consistently turned down,” he said.
Boone said the situation required the staff to supervise the youngster 24/7, except for when he was in school.
The staff ultimately placed him in a Franklin County facility at a cost of $458 per day.
“When you’re dealing with private networks, they can pick and choose what kids they take and what kids they don’t take,” Crider said. “But even if they have the ability to handle him and it wasn’t the time that they wanted to take a high-need kid, they can just say no.”
Last summer, staff supervised a 16-year-old female in a similar situation for about six weeks. She is currently placed in a psychiatric residential facility in Florida.
A caseworker flies to Florida every other month for a face-to-face meeting. In the off months, the caseworker and the child interact virtually.
The state pays the approximate $4,000-a-day cost through the Ohio Rise program. However, Knox County pays the transportation cost to and from Florida.
“We have to keep telling the public because I think they just don’t understand the [placement] cost is astronomical,” County Administrator Jason Booth said.
“When the courts place them in the county’s care, it’s not if we have the money, it’s we shall provide care.”
The county general fund allocates $1 million annually to help cover child care costs.
Other Ohio counties, including Cuyahoga, Franklin, and Hamilton, place children in Knox County homes. Although those counties pay the costs, they take up potential placement homes for Knox County children.
Decreasing cost disparity
Boone said uncertainty about the level of care needed makes it difficult to predict spending.
“When 2016 hit and the opioid pandemic, we weren’t ready for that. Anything that we had that was put away to pay for placement costs or rainy-day types of things quickly got eaten up in a year or two,” Boone said.
“We depend very much on the community to support these activities because every levy dollar that we have goes to paying for a safe roof over a kid’s head.”
Boone said JFS officials are talking with state representatives about the disparity in what facilities charge to house a child. He noted that Franklin County can afford to pay $800 a day to house a child; Knox County cannot.
Of the 7-year-old, Boone said, “The heartbreaking part of it all is that this kid has a lot going on, but he’s such a lovable kid.
“He has these episodes where you just want to take him home and provide a safe place for him. He’s got a really high IQ in the 90s. But what we keep hearing from these facilities is they read into the negative types of things that they perceive and say the liability is too much for us or we can’t handle that.”
However, Boone said that when he talks with other counties, he finds those same facilities accept children with similar circumstances.
“Well, that’s funny, because they turned us down five times. So there is a ‘money talks’ element to all this,” he said.
“We’re working with the directors associations and our local leaders to try to keep pushing [legislation] forward.”
Poverty is a factor
Boone said having parents pay for the cost is not feasible, partly because there is no legal provision for them to do so. Additionally, the families involved are typically low-income and without economic resources.
“So poverty is a factor in this as well,” he said. “What we found was that if we did have a child support order on families, they weren’t able to pay it. Then, it causes arrears, which causes legal problems, which may cause them to go to jail, and they can’t take care of their kids returning home.
“So it was a cycle of outweighing which works better.”
Substance abuse, domestic violence drive child neglect cases
In 2024, Children Services received 1,688 reports of child abuse and neglect. Of those, five investigators under one supervisor investigated 722.
“The highest number of allegations were for neglect, followed by physical abuse, emotional maltreatment, sexual abuse, and medical neglect,” Crider said.
Three-fourths of the cases involve some sort of substance abuse.
The state mandates a 24/7, 365 days-a-year response to reports of abuse and neglect, so children’s services always has someone on call.
Crider said most of those calls come from law enforcement, Knox Community Hospital, and Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
The state opened an online reporting portal for mandated reporters.
“The hospitals, the schools, and those types of reporters can do that online without having to make a phone call,” Crider said.
Crider said numbers are increasing, particularly in the area of domestic violence.
“Anytime a child is present, involved or directly impacted by domestic violence, that comes to us and we open up an investigation,” she said.
Under the Ohio Administrative Code, domestic violence is considered physical abuse, endangering children. Crider said the increase parallels the addiction increase.
In 2024, the agency removed 98 children from their parents, guardians, or custodians.
Removal reasons included neglect, drug abuse by the caretaker (the second highest reason), domestic violence, physical abuse, and child behavioral problems.
Children Services has 95 family units (66 children) in its ongoing unit. The ongoing unit tries to maintain children in their homes, reunify them with their parents, or place them with relatives.
Crider said the majority of the time, the department responds to allegations of abuse and neglect. In April, the focus is on prevention during Child Abuse Prevention Month.