Biden Budget Proposes Funding Increases for Foster Care and Adoption Programs

In a year that seems likely to end in a partisan stalemate over the budget, the Biden administration began the process by releasing its proposed budget for FY 2024 in two steps – first a broad outline, which was released on March 8, and then the agency-level details on March 13.

Overall, the president’s budget proposes reducing the federal deficit by $3 trillion over the next decade while simultaneously leaving room for select funding priorities. Under the proposal, annual deficits would remain above $1 trillion per year, but they would be lower than current projections, mostly due to proposed increases in taxes on corporations and the wealthy. While reducing the deficit, the budget nevertheless includes some funding increases within the Department of Health and Human Services budget, including the Administration for Children and Families (ACF).

The administration proposes increasing ACF’s budget by nearly a third, from $71.4 billion in FY 2023 to $94.4 billion in combined mandatory and discretionary funding in FY 2024. A substantial portion of this increase would go to foster care and adoption-related programs.

Congressional Republicans were quick to signal their opposition to the president’s proposals. “It’s past time President Biden gets serious about the fiscal challenges facing this country. That means actually engaging in talks about the debt limit and working with Congress to restore the budget process,” said Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee.

With Republicans in control of the House and a presidential election looming next year, few of the administration’s proposals seem likely to be enacted into law. It is more likely that current-year spending levels will be frozen in place, either by a narrow end-of-year budget agreement or a year-long continuing resolution.

Nevertheless, the president’s budget represents the first step in the process and it signals the president’s priorities. Highlights for foster care and adoption-related programs include:

• Adoption Assistance Payments: The budget provides $4.706 billion for adoption assistance payments in FY 2024, up from $4.123 billion in FY 2023.

• Adoption and Legal Guardian Incentive Payments: The budget proposes $75 million in FY 2024, level-funding the program compared to FY 2023.

• Adoption Opportunities Program: The budget proposes $51 million in FY 2024, level-funding the program compared to FY 2023. According to the proposed budget, this funding will be used to continue efforts in diligent recruitment, youth engagement, training for resource families, and national technical assistance on mental health and post adoptions support. For FY 2024, it is estimated that 13 grants will be made with an average award of $2,480,028 and a range from $500,000 to $10,900,000.

• Adoption Tax Credit: The budget proposes to make the adoption tax credit refundable, which would reduce the financial burden on low- and moderate-income families, and to extend the credit to legal guardianships.

• Child Welfare Workforce: The budget includes $30 million in the Child Welfare Research, Training, and Demonstration program for new competitive grants to improve recruitment and retention in the child welfare workforce. The proposed funding would support research on best practices and provide technical assistance to jurisdictions implementing projects focused on innovative recruitment and retention efforts.

• Court Improvement Program: The budget proposes flat-funding the Court Improvement Program (CIP), which can be used to facilitate adoption from foster care, at $30 million.

• Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA): Although post-adoption services are eligible for funding under FFPSA, no adoption-specific services are currently eligible under its evidence requirements. However, the budget proposes allowing “up to 15 percent of a state’s Prevention Services funding to be spent on emerging or developing services that do not currently meet the ratings criteria, but states must evaluate the services and either modify or cease using title IV-E funding if the evaluation shows the service to be ineffective.” The budget also proposes providing states 90 percent reimbursement for FFPSA prevention programs from FY 2024-2027.

• Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program (PSSF): PSSF funding can be used for pre- and post-adoption services and other activities that support adoptive families. PSSF has both an annual discretionary (appropriated) and mandatory (entitlement) component. The budget proposes $625.3 million in mandatory funding in FY 2024, up from $325 million in FY 2023. It proposes $106 million in discretionary funding, up from $86.5 million in FY 2023.

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