Bill > S2514

This bill revises how state funds, referred to as "core services funds," are allocated to community-based care lead agencies, which are organizations contracted by the state to provide child welfare services. The primary change involves updating the "equity allocation model," a formula used to distribute these funds, by modifying the factors and their weighting. Specifically, the bill replaces "proportion of children in poverty" with "proportion of the child population" as a factor, and reweights the contributions of the child population, child abuse hotline workload, and children in care to the overall allocation. It also adjusts the percentage of recurring funds based on the prior year's allocation and how new funds are distributed, with a greater emphasis on allocating new funds to agencies that are currently underfunded compared to their equitable share. The bill also clarifies the definition of "proportion of children in care" to include both in-home and out-of-home care cases with a case management overlay.