State price hike for adoption services passed by Assembly panel

CARSON CITY -- A key committee has endorsed a bill that would help get the Division of Child and Family Services out of the private adoption business and give workers more time to find homes for wards of the state.

Supporters said Thursday that SB232 will discourage families from using state adoption services by hiking the state's price for facilitating adoptions from $2,500 to the going market rate - currently about $7,500.

"The bottom line is that this will give the division the discretion to charge people who can afford it the normal rate," the bill's author, Sen. Jon Porter, R-Henderson, told the Assembly Judiciary Committee.

Because the state's rates are currently so much cheaper than private agencies' prices, families looking to adopt a child will often chose the division as a go-between, said Child and Family Services chief Steve Shaw.

"We're not trying to get additional revenue, we're trying to let the private sector do what they should be doing," he said.

The legislation will help Nevada reduce its caseload in preparation for federal rules requiring state agencies to double the number of children they move out of foster care and into adoptive families by 2002, Shaw added.

Several full-time case workers currently working on private adoptions will be freed up to concentrate on finding families for children in state custody, he said.

"We're spending hundreds of hours taking care of private adoptions for families who could go elsewhere," Shaw said.

Judiciary Chairman Bernie Anderson, D-Sparks, said he was concerned that the state would duck its responsibilities for adopted children if families are pushed to private agencies.

"I think we are fearful that it's an economic interest that's driving the boat," Anderson said.

But Shaw insisted his agency would continue to play a role in licensing and overseeing Nevada's private adoption agencies.

In fiscal 1998, the state had about 1,400 foster children in its care - plus about 700 or 800 children who needed institutionalization or intensive therapy for medical or emotional problems.

Shaw's division was able to find adoptive families for 186 of those children. During that same period, the state facilitated 168 private adoptions.

The bill also requires the disclosure of the psychological and behavioral history of children and their birth parents during adoption proceedings.

Having additional medical and sociological information could help with placement because adoptive parents would be better prepared to meet children's needs, lawmakers were told.

AB232 would also require the state to place brothers and sisters with the same families whenever practicable.

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