Posted on July 27, 2010

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Error Sows Confusion Among New York City Child Welfare Charities

A mistake in how New York City planned to distribute $470 million for programs benefitting children has left charities across the city in limbo, the New York Times reports.

Last year, the city solicited proposals for $616 million in grants as part of an attempt to restructure the child welfare system and re-evaluate contracts, some of which originally had been issued a decade ago. After an evaluation that ended in April, nine providers were told they would be denied money while sixty-three were told they would get a total of $470 million. But when officials at the Administration for Children's Services received a complaint about how the money was to be distributed, they discovered that evaluators had failed to give adequate weight to the community ties of groups vying for funds. (An additional $146 million in funding was unaffected by the city's error.)

Administration for Children's Services commissioner John B. Mattingly told the Times that the agency was redoing the entire process after rescinding three-quarters of the awards announced in April and that his staff was working to minimize the consequences of the disruption and extend existing contracts. "[The city] came forward immediately and admitted the mistake," said Mattingly. "We are working with all of the providers to assist them during this transition."

Nevertheless, the mistake could severely hamper the ability of dozens of charities to budget for 2011 and might endanger the financial stability of smaller groups. Some organizations, for example, have been forced to revise their plans for expanding foster care programs and extending service to more families that are struggling, while others had begun the process of phasing out programs because they believed funding for them would no longer be forthcoming. Adding to the challenges, agencies do not know when the city will complete its re-evaluation of the child welfare system, or for how long existing contracts will be extended.

Social services advocates said they could not remember a time of such widespread confusion in the child welfare system, and some called the error one of the biggest mistakes made by an administration that generally gets high marks for its operational competence. "It's just a devastating blow," said Richard Altman, CEO of the Jewish Child Care Association, whose plans to recruit thirty foster families to care for sexually exploited or severely disabled children are on hold. "It essentially leaves us in no man's land....We have no idea what the city is going to do. I can't really tell my board of directors with any kind of certainty what our programs are going to look like going forward."