BELLEFONTE — The Centre County Commissioners approved the Fiscal Year 2025-2026 Needs Based Plan and Budget for Children and Youth Services and several other related action items this week.

The plan covers a two-year period, outlining all services the department provides for both delinquent and dependent children, as well as staffing needs for the child welfare agency and various legal costs. The budget provides projections related to how federal, state and local funds will be allocated to support planned services.

The total budget request stands at $16,751,061, with the county responsible for approximately $3,514,016, or roughly 20 percent, of the total. This represents an increase of $419,000 from last year, primarily driven by the rising complexity of children’s needs and the associated costs of treatment and placement.

“This is the type of budget where you aim high and hope you come in lower, because with Children and Youth if we go over the number you mentioned — unless we’re fortunate — I believe it’s 100 percent county tax code money,” said Commissioner Mark Higgins.

Director of Centre County Children and Youth, Leah Raker, highlighted several issues contributing to the increase.

The department is facing escalating costs due to the growing complexity of cases, which is exacerbated by staffing shortages among service providers.

These challenges have led to higher placement costs and increased expenses related to retaining and recruiting staff. In response, additional funding has been allocated for staff training and development, which is crucial for maintaining a skilled workforce.

“We need to be budgeting to pay people living wages to do this work that is incredibly taxing emotionally and requires a significant skill set you don’t get in the general population. We need some people with some very specific skills to be able to work in this department as well as our partner agencies,” said Commissioner Amber Concepcion.

Included in the plan are increases in funding for service providers Wardell & Associates, who run the county’s Family Intervention Crisis Services, and the Centre County Youth Services Bureau to improve employee salaries and benefits.

Child welfare workers from these organizations investigate and assess children’s safety, assist in their successful transition to adulthood and offer services and resources to families to ensure that the children of Centre County receive proper care and nurturing.

Funding has also been designated for recruiting foster families, a critical need as the department seeks to keep more children within Centre County.

Now several years out from the implementation of Pennsylvania’s Family First program, which allowed federal funds to be used to help children stay with their families and out of the foster care system, data on what initiatives worked to recruit foster families is now available.

Centre County successfully used Family First funding to recruit foster parents for older teens. Building on that success, Children and Youth Services plan to use part of their budget to continue similar advertising to recruit more families and keep kids in the county.

The Needs Based Plan and Budget was approved unanimously.

Also approved was the renewal of a data sharing agreement between the Child Welfare Information System (CWIS), the state’s case management system, and the county system (CAPS).

The agreement allows the county to share required data with the state.

The contract runs from Oct. 1, 2024 to Sept. 30, 2025 and comes at no cost to the county.

The data-sharing agreement lets the county receive electronic mandated reports, track outcomes and manage Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) data, along with other funding information that needs to be reported to the state.

Commissioners also added four additional contract renewals to next week’s consent agenda.

Covering the period from July 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025, Justin P. Miller, Esquire, was contracted at a cost of $10,000 to provide legal services, funded with $8,000 from the state and $2,000 from the county.

Contract renewals were awarded to the Centre County Youth Service Bureau, Community Specialist Corporation and Summit School, Inc. to provide foster care and residential services for delinquent and dependent youth from July 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025.

The contract total for the agreement with the Centre County Youth Services Bureau is $2,086,557 funded $1,669,245.60 by the state and $417,311.40 by the county. The money will be used in part for placement and non-placement services and the Juvenile Mentoring Program.

The contract with Community Specialist Corporation, comes in at a cost of $115,000 with $92,000 of the funding coming from state appropriations and $23,000 from the county itself.

Summit School’s contract is $97,000, funded as follows: $77,600 from the state and $19,400 from the county.

In a similar vein, Commissioners also approved a contract between the office of Mental Health/Intellectual Disabilities/Early Intervention & Drug and Alcohol and Cen-Clear Child Services to provide early intervention services including occupational, physical and speech therapies and Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) teaming.

“(IFSP teaming) allows for two (or more) therapists to consult with a family at the same time. Generally, billing only allows for you to see one therapist at a time. This allows, for example, a speech therapist and an occupational therapist to meet with a family regarding feeding issues that a child may be having,” said Human Services Administrator Julia Sprinkle.

“Centre County is pretty well recognized state-wide as a very well-run Children and Youth Services Department. You want to keep that up and we know this is some of the most important work we’re doing in county government is protecting vulnerable kids,” said Concepcion.