Foster Care boarding home rates differ significantly in New York’s 58 social services districts as each local district (LDSS) or county is allowed to set its own rates. The state only determines the maximum amounts it will reimburse to the local districts as each local district is allowed to set its own rates within state guidelines. Although New York is a state supervised, locally administered system, New York State OCFS does not routinely collect, or maintain, rate information for individual social services districts. In 2009 and then in 2019, the Coalition began the process of collecting and updating the data. Every county has been contacted multiple times since with requests for the updated boarding rate and foster care subsidy information.
Current Foster Care Boarding Rates
Position Statement and Advocacy on Foster Care Board Rates
The Coalition advocates that the New York State Office of Children and Families Services (OCFS) establish consistent statewide minimum board rates for all social services districts, commensurate with actual costs.
Currently OCFS sets only state maximum rates, resulting in great disparity between districts and exploitation of foster parents. Actual costs of care far exceed current board rates, and foster parents alone are forced to subsidize the cost of caring for foster children, who are the collective responsibility of the whole community.
The Adoptive and Foster Family Coalition of New York, on behalf of New York State Foster parents, has filed a lawsuit against the state of New York. On August 16th, 2019, the Second Circuit upheld our victory—giving parents of children of foster care the right to enforce federal requirements under the Child Welfare Act. We hope that this action by the Court will convince the State to make meaningful changes to its deficient and underfunded system for children in foster care.
For more information on establishing foster care reimbursement rate based on the real expenses of raising a child in foster care see the Children’s Rights “Hitting the M.A.R.C.” Policy Project that includes the first-ever nationwide, state-by-state calculation of the real cost of supporting children in foster care and reveals widespread deficiencies in reimbursement rates across the nation and major disparities among the states.
- OCFS Foster Parent Handbook
- Guide to Foster Care Special Payments Allocated and Non-Allocated Expenses; Issue Date: July 1, 2018
- New York State Local District Basic, Special, and Exceptional Rates as of October 2009 (pdf)
- New York State Local District Clothing Allowance and Miscellaneous Rates (pdf)
- Current Foster Care and Group Home Rates Paid to Voluntary Agencies (pdf)
- New York State Maximum Reimbursement Rates
- 15-OCFS ADM-11 – Maximum State Aid Rates Foster Care and Residential Programs, 7/1/15-3/31/16
- Excerpt OCFS Standards of Payment for Foster Care Manual (pdf)
- 08-OCFS ADM-03 Required Notice to Foster Parent of Level of Care and Payment (pdf)
- Form LDSS 7018 for Notification of Foster Care Level of Care and Payment (pdf)
- Hitting the M.A.R.C.: Establishing Foster Care Minimum Adequate