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It's been almost a year since the state's first coronavirus case, and there are changes to the way the data is reported and changes to eligibility for the vaccine.

And advocates for at risk kids and those in foster care say it's going to take more money in the state budget to deal with the effects of the pandemic on those children and their families.

All this weekend, the state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of Ohio, I'm Karen Kasler as the state approaches the one year anniversary of its first case of covid-19, Governor Mike DeWine held a statewide address Thursday to remind Ohioans that the numbers are dropping and there are more vaccines.

The pandemic isn't over, but he said if Ohio gets down to 50 cases per 100000 residents for two weeks, all health orders in the state will come off.

That's a level not seen in Ohio since June 17th.

And only one county homes is at that level now.

Meanwhile, there are changes.

The Ohio Department of Health, a few weeks after it was discovered that over four thousand deaths from November and December were not recorded.

Ohio Department of Health director Stephanie McCloud's says the agency has been manually counting covid deaths through a reconciliation process so they could get those numbers out to the public faster.

But she says that process was fraught with human error.

So starting this week, a change to relying on death certificates after they have been reviewed and coded by the Centers for Disease Control.

It's very reliable.

It will be automated.

It will have quality assurance checks on that automated process, but it will be somewhat delayed.

It's still a bit confusing for those who have been wondering about confirmed deaths versus probable deaths, which the state has used for almost the full year of this pandemic.

The death total on Tuesday, the first day of the new system, no longer included the breakdown of deaths as confirmed and probable.

On this show, I've reported on confirmed deaths.

So the deaths total appear to have jumped by nearly two thousand deaths to sixteen thousand seven hundred and fifty.

But probable deaths do not exist in the new system that is now using.

While the covid death numbers took a hit vaccine, efforts in Ohio received a booster shot this week as the new Johnson and Johnson vaccine was released starting in Ohio.

And that is allowing the state to catch up with the health care workers, nursing home residents and staff, people over 65 and school employees who have been eligible for shots until this week.

Statehouse correspondent Jo Ingles takes a look at how the vaccine effort in Ohio is progressing.

And what puts us on offense really is having the vaccine where more vaccine coming in the state of Ohio, Ohio got more than 96000 doses of the new Johnson and Johnson vaccine this past week.

And the first person to get it in the U.S. was an 86 year old woman who got her shot at a clinic inside the Schottenstein Arena at Ohio State Tuesday.

This is by far the most doses, more doses than we received in any other week.

We're very excited about this.

The Janja vaccine was sent to about 200 independent pharmacies that hadn't yet been able to participate in the vaccine effort, as well as existing providers.

And with the Pfizer and Moderna shipments, Ohio got nearly a half million doses this week, DeWine says.

Twelve hundred providers that are now online had vaccine available throughout the state.

So he took and anxiously awaited step the list of eligible medical conditions.

And the one group was expanded to two hundred forty six thousand more people, including those with Type one diabetes, those who are pregnant and people who have had organ transplants.

Also in one see people with high risk jobs, including funeral service directors, day care providers and security forces that work at least 20 hours a week.

Full time officers with state and local police and corrections officers who have been lobbying for the vaccines for months are also included in this category.

And after about a month of eligibility only for those over 65, DeWine dropped the age to 60.

Age is going to continue to be our dominant indicator.

We know that if we can when we get down to 50, we're going to be at ninety seven or ninety eight percent of all the deaths have been people over 50.

So age is really the best indicator.

You know, we're balancing these things and trying to assess where the risk is, we're trying to make sure we understand the best we can where the risk is.

And so, as you saw what we did today, we lower the age down to 60.

And this adds nine hundred forty one thousand people to the vaccine eligibility list.

The wine says the next group will be 55 to 59 year olds.

But he's not saying when that window will open and some medical conditions are still left off the list, most notably cancer.

And many workers who were considered essential, such as those working in restaurants or grocery stores, haven't been given priority yet either.

Some younger Ohioans have gotten shots by showing up to fill canceled or no show appointments.

DeWine says providers are supposed to follow a protocol for dispensing those extra shots.

What we have said is that if you first of all, you should try to estimate the best you can.

Second, if you have something left over and you cannot keep it to follow the regulations, you obviously have to follow the regulations.

What we are saying to them is you should have when you start that day, a list of people you're going to go to.

And I know that a number of them do have a list and we've asked them to get that list from people who are in the eligible group.

DeWine says if no one from the eligible list is available, providers can give shots to non eligible Ohioans.

But he says the shots, which have to be used quickly to avoid expiration, should not be wasted.

Unused shots have to be reported to the State Health Department.

About 300 vaccines have gone unused in Ohio so far, and that's around one percent.

Some are due to waste, but most are due to other issues.

For many, scheduling is still a challenge, since it's unknown when the state's centralized system will be online.

Eligible Ohioans need to call or register online with any of the 15 hundred providers who have the vaccine in their area.

And many people are finding they need to travel to other counties to get their shots.

Devine says Ohioans should expect mass vaccination clinics in the near future.

And President Biden is saying that everyone who wants this shot should be able to get one by the end of May.

The state is working on making sure vaccine distribution efforts are equitable and is trying to discourage vaccine hesitancy with outreach efforts and town halls for African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, Pacific Islanders and rural Ohioans.

Jo Ingles Statehouse News Bureau.

A year ago this week, the Arnold Sports Festival in Columbus became the nation's largest event, canceled for coronavirus.

And this week, Gov.. Mike DeWine signed two orders on mass gatherings.

Banquet halls no longer have a 300 person limit as long as attendees at weddings, proms, funeral wakes and parties wear face coverings and the facilities adhere to other previous health orders.

And youth, collegiate club and professional sports can have spectators.

Twenty five percent of the seating capacity can be used indoors, 30 percent outdoors.

This week, the Columbus Blue Jackets hosted fans for the first time in more than a year, Tuesday's home game only had one thousand nine hundred and fifty three fans, or 10 percent of the capacity of nationwide arena.

More than forty eight hundred fans will be permitted at the next home game on this coming Tuesday under the new twenty five percent order.

The Cleveland Cavaliers were the first indoor pro sports team in Ohio to bring back fans first, with just under two thousand fans in December and then with a waiver to allow twenty seven hundred spectators last month to legislative notes.

The Ohio House passed the eight billion dollar state transportation budget this week.

It cuts an increase in vehicle fees that DeWine had wanted, but adds more money to the Ohio Highway Patrol.

And it restores a 90 percent cut in public transit from Dwayne's budget.

And the Senate unanimously approved a bill to strip the billion dollars in fees over the next decade that all Ohio Electric ratepayers would pay to subsidize Ohio's two nuclear power plants.

The collection of those fees is on hold now because of two court orders.

But that was a key provision of House Bill six, the energy law that's at the center of a federal corruption scandal involving Republican former speaker Larry Householder, four others, a dark money group and a utility widely believed to be first energy.

Some of the most difficult testimony and hearings on the state budget comes from people who work with at risk kids and those in foster care, which has been overwhelmed with the opioid crisis and other substance abuse.

And now with the effects of the pandemic.

Children's Services was underfunded for years until DeWine and state lawmakers poured one hundred and twenty million dollars into it in the last budget.

Well, more than doubling the funding over the last two years have been devastating for the system.

I talked with the head of the state's Public Children's Services Association in our studio here following our usual pandemic protocols.

Now, you appeared before lawmakers on a panel featuring others who are working in the Children and Family Services space.

One of them, Danny Brennaman, the executive director of Coshocton County Job and Family Services, told them, quote, We are broke.

Why is that?

Is this just a pandemic related thing or is it more than that?

It's the pandemic on top of our system being in crisis for several years now, largely due to the opioid epidemic, now the addiction epidemic.

So as Danny Brennaman shared, they've gone from 15, 16 kids in care to now well over 60 two.

And so when you've had such a significant increase of children coming into foster care, that means you're going to have higher costs, most associated with placement costs.

And so that's that's his struggle.

He his placement costs have essentially caused his agency to go broke.

And he's had to now go to his county commissioners to ask for some additional funding to help with his deficit.

There are more than fifteen thousand kids in Ohio's foster care system.

There's a lot of pressure this time to keep budgets at flat funding.

And Dwayne's budget seeks to seventy eight million dollar increase for children's services, which is a eight percent increase the first year, but a slight decrease in the second year.

You noted in your budget testimony, you just said here that placement costs continue to go up, increasing nine percent annually in the last two years at thirty four million dollars.

Fifty two percent since twenty thirteen.

And you did a member survey last April showing forty five percent.

Public children's services agencies reported that new state budget investments were already spent on placement costs.

So how can you keep up with these increasing cost if the funding is flat?

We can't.

That's the issue of this budget.

We the the increase that we see in Hospital 110 is needed.

It completely supports the governor's transformation recommendations that were part of the Children's Services Transformation Advisory Council.

And so, you know, those recommendations need to move forward.

I appreciate the governor's commitment for making sure that we continue to to move this transformation recommendations forward.

So that's the increase that's currently in the executive budget.

What what is flat funded are the counties.

And we really appreciated the last General Assembly, significant increase in children's services.

I mean, more than doubled the funding for our county children's services agencies.

However, our needs continue to increase.

And so when you see placement costs continuing to go up, you still see a large volume of children in foster care.

Kinship care is on the horizon and having to pay higher premiums to kinship caregivers.

All of that adds up to we can't stay flat funded.

We won't be able to do transformation.

We won't be able to the governor's transformation.

We won't be able to do the federal transformation called Family First.

And we won't be able to meet the new kinship support program that that will add more costs with that additional state.

I want to ask you about several of those things that you just mentioned, but first of all, I think a lot of people might say, hey, I vote for every children's services levy that I see on my ballot.

Why isn't that enough funding?

First of all, thank you for voting for children's services.

Levees keep doing that.

We need your support in Ohio, about four children's services overall.

The the the counties use their children's services levy or for those counties that don't have a levy from county general revenue fund makes up about forty two percent of of overall expenditures in child welfare.

So still largely funded by the counties, the state share has increased from 10 percent to 16 percent.

And then the rest is federal funds that we're able to leverage.

So so absolutely.

We need children's services levy.

It's a huge portion of of how we're able to pay for the child services expenditures.

What what we're trying to achieve in the state budget is try to reduce the pressure on local taxpayers to have to see additional levies or increased levies because we're not be able to get additional resources in the state budget.

You mentioned about kinship care.

There are fifteen thousand kids in the foster care system.

As I mentioned, only eight thousand licensed foster families.

That puts the pressure on those families and on agencies to try to find places for these children.

Yes, this has been an ongoing issue, particularly as we've seen the number of kids rising in foster care currently a little bit more than fifteen thousand.

We continue to be aggressive in foster home recruitment.

It's it's not something that happens quickly.

It takes a person a while to decide that they actually want to become a foster parent.

And then when they actually make that commitment, then it could take anywhere from six to nine months to to become licensed.

So we are always focused on trying to increase the number of foster parents in Ohio.

We know that children do best in family settings.

So if we could prevent kids from having to go into group homes, for example, and instead they can be placed with a foster home, that child will have better outcomes long term.

So it's an effort that we continue to focus on.

We also want to look at providing more supports and training to foster families, particularly those that are willing to take children with more complex challenges.

There was a bill that was passed last year involving payments for caregivers, and Governor DeWine ordered Ohio Department of Job and Family Services to develop a system that would pay kinship caregivers by no later than June 1st.

But because of that law could be retroactive to December 29th.

There are twenty six hundred kinship caregivers providing care to almost four thousand kids.

That's a big deal.

But again, you need more.

And you've said that there's money in this budget to cover the cost of the state portion of the program.

But once again, not for the counties would you estimate could be an additional thirty seven million dollars a year?

Yes.

So the state portion for the new program that's called Kinship Support Program will provide eligible kinship caregivers.

And I should specify that these are kinship caregivers, relatives or non relatives active can who have a child in their home.

But that child is in custody of the Children Services Agency.

So it's a very small pool of all the kinship caregivers in Ohio.

The state will provide those kinship caregivers a daily rate of 10 dollars and 20 cents per day per child for that for the first nine months.

And then after that, it turns to six months ongoing that the goal is during that nine month period that that kinship caregiver will become a licensed foster parent.

And then once they become a licensed foster parent, just like all foster care, the cost falls onto the county.

So in the executive budget, the state has thirty four million in the first state fiscal year.

Twenty two and thirty million in state fiscal year.

Twenty three to cover their portion of this program, based on our estimates of only half of those eligible kinship caregivers would become licensed foster parents.

That cost is an additional thirty seven million dollars to our counties and that is not in the budget.

You also mentioned the federal program called Family First, which is supposed to be implemented on October 1st of this year.

It aims to keep kids from coming into the foster care system or into institutionalized settings.

There is federal funding attached to the program, but once again, the state funding is just not there.

You say correct.

So on for Family First, this this law will go into effect October 1st of this year.

There are very specific requirements in the Family First Act for residential facilities and group homes.

They have to meet very.

Expensive, time consuming quality standards by October 1st, and the state has been supporting the residential facilities in group homes and trying to work towards meeting those standards, however, we we, at least as of today, believe that less than half of the facilities will actually meet those standards by October 1st.

The state did allow our facilities three additional years past the federal deadline to meet them.

And they did this to maintain our current capacity of facilities.

I mean, we can't afford to lose residential facilities and group homes.

As you said, we have fifteen thousand kids in care and eight thousand foster homes.

So so we definitely need our facilities and we understand the reason for that three year extension.

However, during that three year period, our counties will not be able to claim any federal reimbursement for children who are placed in those settings that don't meet these new standards.

And that cost is twenty to twenty five million dollars a year in lost federal reimbursement to our counties, meaning they will have to come up with twenty to twenty five million dollars to pay for those placements.

Now there is money coming in to some programs that the governor has identified.

For instance.

Thirty two million dollars to the bank to expand the Ohio start, which is sobriety treatment and reducing trauma program.

Twenty four million dollars for Wendy's wonderful kids statewide.

That's program that provides funding to adoption agencies to hire recruiters to find adoptive homes for kids in foster care.

Ten million dollars to implement evidence based programs.

One and a half million dollars to recruit and train college students and children's services, and one million dollars to create a statewide ombudsman.

But is this enough money to really deal with some of the major issues?

Are these programs just kind of nibbling around the edges or are they going to really help you and the counties deal with some of the challenges that you've got?

Yeah, so the the new programs are part of Housefull.

One can completely support moving some of the recommendations forward from the Governors Children's Services Transformation Report.

So Wendy's wonderful kids.

I mean, that's a great program to highlight that that program really provides targeted assistance in finding adoptive homes for children who oftentimes have been lingering in foster care for years.

And you would most likely consider them hate using this word unadoptable.

And in Wendy's, wonderful kids believes every child can be adopted.

And this is a program that works for the Dave Thomas Foundation of Wendy's restaurants.

Yes.

So I think the governor mentioned during the press conference on Friday, we have three thousand children waiting for adoption.

So we definitely need that program.

And the fact that that's being expanded statewide is as excellent.

We appreciate the governor's commitment to ensuring that our caseworkers, who are very overburdened at the time, receive better training so that they can continue to do the important work that they're doing.

All of this is needed because it's part of the transformation of our system.

In addition, we have the Family First Act that's right before us, and we need additional funds to be able to implement that transformation as well.

I want to go back to the testimony from Danny Brennaman from Coshocton County.

He said, I've never seen a more critical or pivotal point in any of the service areas of our agency or community investment in child where welfare is assurance and insurance, that we can provide quality services to children and families to help keep them safe and healthy.

So it doesn't really come down to money that you need more money to make some of these things happen.

I wish it were and I wish it didn't come down to money because, you know, I realize that we received a significant increase in state funds in the last biennium budget or in this current biennium budget, I should say.

And and we truly support that.

We absolutely needed that.

We have been flat funded by the state for decades.

So to see such an increase really was great.

It felt like a partnership was forming between the state and the counties that were in it and bring them together to really keep children safe and ensuring their well-being and obviously the permanency of children.

So, you know, we we don't come lightly at this, as I should say.

That's because our ask, which is 50 million dollars a year additional to children's services in what we call the state child protection allocation line is what we believe is the minimal cost increase our counties are going to experience over the next two years are our estimates are solely based on that new kinship support program we talked about, as well as the Family First changes.

It does not take into account the the staffing our counties are going to need to in order to ensure some of this transformation that's in in.

In the executive budget, for example, there's there's quite a quite a bit of policy changes within this executive budget related to children's services, for example, family finding that's going to require additional staff at our local level to to ensure that we're doing intensive family finding.

So so, you know, I know this is going to be this is a very challenging year, are challenging budget.

I recognize there's many competing needs and our ask is big considering budget.

But I also believe this is the minimal cost increase our counties are going to experience.

And the one thing I haven't highlighted is, you know, we we've we've said before where the system of last resort or whenever another system reforms, we feel the pain, meaning more kids are traumatized, more kids have to come into our care.

So as this pandemic slows down and as this pandemic ends, we could see additional kids coming into the foster care who have been suffering at home for over a year, experienced neglect, additional trauma, parents are struggling with addiction issues, et cetera.

So that's not even taken to account with our budget.

Ask.

There were five hundred and fourteen children whose families did not have to relinquish custody to get them the treatment they needed in the last year.

But there are still more so-called multisystem youth who sometimes have to be placed out of state because of their complex needs.

So Foster says the new Ohio Rise program, which Medicaid director Maureen Corcoran talked about on this show last month, will help those kids with severe behavioral problems and will save lives and money for county children's services agencies.

But again, it will take money to do that.

And that's it for this week.

Please check out the Ohio Public Radio and Television State House News Bureaus website at statenews.org.

And you can follow us and the show on Facebook and Twitter.

And please join us again next time for the state of Ohio.

Support for the statewide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from medical mutual, providing more than one point four million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at Medda Mutual dotcom slash Ohio by the law offices of PorterWright Morris and Arthur LLP.

Now with eight locations across the country, PorterWright is a legal partner with a new perspective to the business community, Morad PorterWright Dotcom and from the Ohio Education Association, representing 100 24000 members who worked to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online at O H E A dot org.