House puts brakes on plan to privatize foster care, adoptions
Plans to privatize Georgia’s child welfare system by 2017 — including foster care and adoptions — were thwarted Tuesday when a House committee passed a scaled-down plan calling for a two-year pilot program.
Senate Bill 350, which sailed through the Senate last month with a 31-18 vote, would have required the Division of Family and Children Services to bid out primary functions such as case management, family preservation and independent living. The plan was modeled after the system in Florida. Supporters said private companies would provide superior services to Georgia’s most vulnerable children.
But child advocates cautioned lawmakers against moving too fast, and the House Judiciary Committee responded to those pleas by passing a substitute that would inch Georgia toward privatization with a two-year pilot program in portions of the state.
“I’m concerned if we make a complete change without having an opportunity to do a full evaluation of it, we may be — as I’ve heard from Florida who went through this — creating the same potential problems in our own state,” said Chairman Wendell Willard, R-Sandy Springs, who introduced the substitution.
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