Progress has been taking place in Frankfort this week. The House and Senate appear poised to approve increases in taxes on cigarettes and alcohol that will raise about $150 million in state revenues over a full year. We need to continue to communicate to the governor, who will oversee how the additional revenue is used, and to our elected representatives that restoring funds to the foster care system is essential.
A recent editorial in The Courier-Journal made a strong argument for the funding.
“Kentuckians without power – now there’s a concept.
On another day, we would be referring to our neighbors whose electrical connections were cut by the ice storm. But today, we speak for and about abused and neglected children in need of safety-net services and low-income families in search of affordable housing.
Two recent stories in The Courier-Journal examined how these vulnerable citizens are being particularly squeezed by the economic downturn and the resulting state budget shortfall of almost half a billion dollars.
Reporter Deborah Yetter wrote that the Cabinet for Health and Family Services is cutting $4.5 million from private, non-profit agencies that provide foster care and residential services for several thousand Kentucky children who have been removed from their homes because of abuse and neglect. The state does not have residential centers …
Neither abused children nor poor families are a powerful constituency. But clearly, we as a people, and as a society, cannot allow life-saving or life-sustaining services to be curtailed to children who already have been hurt …
It is within the power of state government to raise revenue to support services for our children …
Shame, if we leave the least of us out in the cold.”
If you haven’t already, please send a letter to Governor Steve Beshear at:
700 Capitol Ave., Suite 100
Frankfort, KY 40601
You can also send a message to lawmakers by following these steps:
1. Call the Legislative Message Line at (800) 372-7181.
2. Give your name and address.
3. Give the message “Avoid cuts to children in foster care” to the leadership in both the House and Senate as well as Sen. Charlie Borders, Rep. Rick Rand and your personal legislators. (Find your legislators at http://www.votesmart.org.)
In these critical times, we must be the voice for Kentucky children without power.
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