A Times Editorial

Cheap talk on at-risk teens

The governor talks of strong families. His proposed budget, however, cuts services for runaways and is likely to increase foster care rolls, not reduce them.

© St. Petersburg Times
published February 12, 2003

Gov. Jeb Bush's stance on services for teen runaways is the worst form of doublespeak. Bush touts his goal of "strengthening Florida's families" but then proposes to slash vital services that have long been successful in keeping at-risk teens off the streets and at home. Likewise, Bush says he supports his child-welfare chief's pledge to keep more kids out of foster care. But cutting shelter and nonresidential services for runaway teens and truants, as Bush envisions, would only drive more teens into foster care, not to mention the state's juvenile facilities and jails.

Bush's proposed budget would cut the bare-bones CINS/FINS program ("Children in Need of Services and Families in Need of Services") by more than half, to $12-million from $27.3-million. But even that deep cut does not represent the full pain that would be exacted from the program. Bush is proposing that most of the reduced money come from federal welfare reform dollars, not state general revenue funds as it does now. Those federal dollars are not only an unstable funding source. Program leaders say that only a fraction of families currently being served would qualify under its strict eligibility. That amounts to a triple-whammy, one that would signal the end of critical services and the beginning of even more trouble for families already at the edge.

For years, CINS/FINS has been a lifeline for troubled teens and families on the verge of losing a child to the streets. It has provided both shelter and nonresidential counseling services, as well as the only 24-hour crisis program in the state for at-risk teens. Judges, police and schools often send teens to CINS/FINS as an alternative to more harsh and costly alternatives. Even the Department of Children and Families, which would inherit what's left of the program, has relied on these runaway shelters to provide emergency beds for foster teens. Bush's proposed cut, which comes on top of a 25 percent loss in funding over the past two years, would have a serious ripple effect -- with juvenile authorities, DCF and parents and kids all losing valuable options.

Now exactly how does that "strengthen families?"

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