Gov. Kelly cancels Kansas child welfare grants that went to troubled Florida agency
The state of Kansas has terminated several controversial child welfare grants awarded last year and will rebid for the services to ensure transparency and fairness, Gov. Laura Kelly announced Thursday.
In a news conference with the leader of the Department for Children and Families at her side, Kelly said last year’s process to award grants for family preservation services was flawed and must be redone.
“We will work to solve the inconsistencies in the grants and shed more light on the process,” Kelly said Thursday. “Our hope is that by adding more transparency to this process and moving forward thoughtfully we can begin to stabilize our child welfare system.”
The process for family preservation grants will start over and bids will go through the Department of Administration. Instead of grants, providers will be awarded contracts like they were in previous years.
At the same time, the state will reopen negotiations on foster care grants — but not rebid them — to make sure the scope of services is what’s needed for children and families, officials said Thursday.
Kelly’s announcement comes a day after The Star revealed that DCF awarded grants for family preservation services worth more than $17 million to a troubled Florida agency that did not apply for the work.
Documents obtained by The Star earlier this week also revealed that the agency, Eckerd Connects, received grants in two other areas of the state despite earning some of the lowest scores in an internal ranking process. Eckerd wasn’t recommended to receive the grants in either area — and wasn’t even the review team’s second choice.
That information only solidified initial concerns by lawmakers and child advocates who late last year questioned the state’s move from contracts to grants. Many worried that DCF leaders would have too much control over who received tens of millions in state funds each year and that the process was being conducted with little, if any, oversight.
The concern was so great that Kelly last month requested a hold be put on the grants so she and her new DCF secretary, Laura Howard, could review the process and determine if it was right for Kansas. Or even legal.
At that time, which was days before she became governor, Kelly asked contractors not to spend any money until they heard further from Howard.
After she and her staff reviewed the grants, Howard said several issues were evident. The lack of transparency wasn’t the only concern, she said.
“Awards were made to a vendor with very poor technical scores and awards were made in regions that someone didn’t bid on,” Howard said. “I mean it followed no protocols of purchasing no matter what agency would be managing that, whether it was the Department of Administration or the Department for Children and Families.”
While the family preservation grants are rebid as contracts, vendors providing the services now will extend their work for six months. And foster care providers will extend their current contracts by three months.
The grants were awarded in November, when Gina Meier-Hummel led DCF and Jeff Colyer was governor. Before then, child welfare funds in Kansas typically were distributed through contracts that were overseen by the state Department of Administration.
The decision to return to that process gained early support from advocates and lawmakers.
“It just makes sense to redo the grants for family preservation and put the process back into the Department of Administration where it’s always been handled before,” said former Rep. Linda Gallagher, a Republican who was on the legislative child welfare task force. “I think they definitely have their priorities right to do the right thing for the children of Kansas but also to do it in a transparent way and to use the taxpayers’ money in the best way possible.”
Rep. Jarrod Ousley, D-Merriam, continuously questioned last year why DCF switched to grants in the first place. He said he still isn’t sure why but has faith that the state will begin to see positive change inside the troubled child welfare system.
“For years, I’ve been saying ‘I’m tired of promises, I want progress,’” Ousley said. “And they are making promises, and keeping them already.”
In just 30 days, Ousley said, Kelly and Howard and their administrations have examined what went wrong in the grant process and are working to fix it.
“Those are actions,” he said. “Those are visible actions that are going to help better provide services to the kids.”
Kelly said DCF sent a letter Thursday morning to Eckerd Connects and Cornerstones of Care terminating the previously negotiated grants for family preservation services in Kansas. Four agencies — Saint Francis Ministries, KVC Kansas, TFI and Cornerstones of Care — were notified of the state’s intent to reopen negotiations on the state’s foster care grants that also were awarded in November, the governor said.
Howard said it was not DCF’s intent to restart the process on the foster care grants. The goal is to work with current contractors and negotiate any changes that are needed.
“With the foster care grants we didn’t see the same level of issues,” Howard said Thursday.
“We want to continue to work with our valued partners to ensure the grants are structured in a way that provides more stability during the grant transition and additional clarity in the roles of both the grantees and DCF.”
To ensure transparency going forward, Kelly said, DCF will seek bids for family preservation services through the state Department of Administration. She said that department also will assist DCF employees with foster care grant negotiations to ensure that proper procedures are followed.
“As a senator, I served on the Child Welfare Task Force and I voiced my concerns regularly about the lack of transparency in the Department of Children and Families,” Kelly said. “Rest assured, fixing the problems in this agency, working with advocates and being open about the process is of critical importance to my administration.”
The Star requested documents in mid-November from DCF regarding the selection process. The past administration would not release the information, saying the bids weren’t final.
But after The Star renewed the request with the new DCF administration, those documents were released earlier this week.
Last year, Meier-Hummel touted the use of grants as a “dramatic change” and a way to increase accountability and oversight. She said the awards were issued after an “extensive and robust review process.” And in a follow-up interview a month after the grants were announced, she said, “I don’t know how we could be any more transparent.”
Yet the records show that the grant process was far from that.
Two internal teams of staffers from across the agency reviewed the grant applications in late August and submitted their recommendations to Meier-Hummel last fall. Until The Star examined the documents, it wasn’t known that their top selections weren’t followed in three of the state’s four regions.
The reviewers recommended Cornerstones of Care for the Kansas City region, and that agency was awarded the grant. Cornerstones also was recommended for the East region, which does not include Kansas City, but that went to Eckerd. Saint Francis Ministries was the team’s choice for the West and Wichita regions, but again, those went to Eckerd, records show.
Eckerd did not apply for the DCF’s western region grant. But the documents show that on Oct. 30 — long after the review team made its grant recommendations — Eckerd submitted a budget request for the western region. And two days later, DCF announced the recipients, awarding Eckerd the grants in three of the state’s four regions, including the west.
An Eckerd spokeswoman issued a statement Thursday in response to Kelly’s action.
“The State of Kansas has the authority to cancel the grants for convenience and we respect their decision to do so,” said Ellen Standlee, operations director for Eckerd programs in Kansas. “Eckerd Connects looks forward to continuing to partner with the Department and serve the children and families of Kansas.”
An official with KVC Kansas said she was pleased to learn that the services were going to be bid again.
“Since KVC Kansas has consistently performed high in outcomes such as safety, timely engagement, and maintaining children at home, we are eager to be considered for this critical prevention work with children and families,” President Linda Bass said in a statement.
Janis Friesen, a spokeswoman for Saint Francis Ministries, supported Thursday’s decision, which she said is “in the interest of transparency and fairness.”
“We look forward to continuing our detailed discussion with the Administration and DCF regarding the costs — and demonstrable benefits — of providing high-quality, evidence-based, therapeutic treatment and services for children and families,” Friesen said.
Denise Cross, president and CEO of Cornerstones of Care — which in November was awarded both family preservation and foster care grants — had a mixed reaction to Thursday’s action.
“We are pleased that the foster care grants have been honored by the state, and appreciate the opportunity to collaborate with DCF to ensure the long-term stability for children and families,” Cross said in a statement. “A smooth, collaborative transition for children and families is our top priority.”
But she added: “It is disappointing to learn that the Family Preservation grants will be rebid as we proposed a high-quality, trauma-informed approach to help children in Atchison, Leavenworth, Wyandotte, Douglas and Johnson counties remain safely in their homes. We plan to pursue every opportunity to help ensure safe and healthy communities for Kansas’ children.”
Rep. John Carmichael, a Wichita Democrat and a longtime proponent of government transparency, was pleased with the governor’s action Thursday.
“I would certainly support bidding these contracts through the standard Department of Administration bidding process with the safeguards for transparency and for fairness,” Carmichael said.
He added, however, that the issue with the DCF grants “is endemic of a much, much larger problem.”
“And in the long term, I think we also have to seriously question whether it is still a good idea to contract out and privatize child welfare services,” he said. “Increasingly, members of the Legislature are questioning whether that model is in fact in the best interest of children.”
This story was originally published February 14, 2019 at 1:16 PM with the headline "Gov. Kelly cancels Kansas child welfare grants that went to troubled Florida agency."
