COLUMBUS — A new Ohio law overhauls and significantly expands existing state incentives for adoptive families, a change that bill sponsors hope will help encourage families to consider adoption as an option while cutting down on the thousands of children in the state foster care system.
Last Monday, Gov. Mike DeWine signed House Bill 45, which includes language that creates three tiers of new adoption grants. They are:
A $10,000 grant to families that adopt a child after Jan. 1, 2023, replacing an existing $10,000 state adoption tax credit.
A $15,000 grant to families that adopt a child after Jan. 1, 2023, after fostering the child as a certified caregiver.
A $20,000 grant to families that adopt a child with special needs after Jan. 1, 2023. The new law specifies what conditions qualify as “special needs,” and includes developmental disabilities, “any mental or psychological disorder” or a medical condition that causes “distress, pain, dysfunction, or social problems” and requires ongoing medical care.
The bill also creates a new $2,500 grant to pay for college expenses for Ohioans who were adopted after Jan. 1, 2023.
The adoption grants aren’t available to step-parent adoptions. For the special-needs grant, the diagnosis must be performed by a qualified medical professional before an adoption is finalized.
Adoption advocates mostly praised the changes, which have particular significance for the foster-care system. But because they passed as a last-minute bill amendment during December’s lame-duck legislative session, foregoing the typical process of holding public committee hearings, many advocates involved in adoption in Ohio didn’t know about the changes until they were passed and didn’t have the chance to offer feedback while they were being developed. Some still are trying to learn more about the program.
Sen. Theresa Gavarone, a Bowling Green Republican who helped push for the new adoption grants, said they’re meant to make adoption easier and more financially feasible.
Private adoptions, particularly when infants are involved, can cost tens of thousands of dollars in legal expenses and other fees. Adoptions of older children, including those in the state foster-care network, have their own unique challenges that can include long-term behavioral health concerns and other medical issues.
“We’re trying to make money available so that families have accessibility, so they’re able to adopt a child and to make it feasible,” said Gavarone, an attorney who has worked with children’s issues during her legal career. “If money and the financial concerns are a barrier to adopting a child, we want to break down that barrier.”
The adoption changes also are occurring against a broader backdrop, as lawmakers and advocates prepare for the possible effects on the adoption and foster-care system stemming from the June decision from the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, ending national protections for abortion. The decision meant Ohio immediately adopted a ban on abortion as early as six weeks into pregnancy, although the ban is on hold again pending a legal challenge in state court.
In addition, DeWine has emphasized state government support for children and mothers since taking office in 2019, including by creating a new office meant to coordinate state children’s programs. DeWine also assembled a panel in 2020 to review state family-related policies and recommend potential changes, a process that involved hearing from foster parents with complaints about the system.
Bill Teets, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, said agency officials are excited to implement the new grant program. They must do so before April, when the law goes into effect.
The new program likely will have the side effect of more comprehensively tracking the number of adoptions in Ohio, something that isn’t currently done.
But 2,133 people claimed the adoption tax credit in 2020, according to state tax records. The bill sets aside $15 million to fund the program, estimated to be enough to fund it, while granting the governor’s office to request more funding if needed.
“Gov. DeWine has challenged us to help the 3,400 children awaiting adoption find permanent homes,” Teets said. “This grant will be a tremendous help to those Ohioans who’ve chosen to adopt, and will make the decision to adopt easier for those for who have been considering adoption but may be concerned about cost.”
The adoption language was added to HB45 during December’s lame-duck state legislative session, a time period that often sees quick, unexpected changes to bills as lawmakers, some of whom are on the cusp of leaving office, wrap up their work for the year.
The new adoption changes were passed alongside a sweeping amendment to HB45 that also spent $6 billion in federal relief funds, expanding the bill from five pages to 126 pages. The new adoption language was sought by Ohio Right to Life, a group known mostly for anti-abortion advocacy but that also lobbies to expand adoption access.
Mike Gonidakis, Ohio Right to Life’s executive director, said the organization came up with the idea for the new adoption grants over the summer while brainstorming its strategy for the lame-duck session. And it developed the specifics by working with state Senate staff, in consultation with adoption attorneys, he said.
Gonidakis said the group plans to push for continued reforms to the adoption system, including trying to focus on streamlining the complex legal side of the process at some point in the near future.
“This is tip of the iceberg stuff we can work on,” Gonidakis said.
Among the groups that praised the law change is the Public Children Services Association of Ohio, a state trade group that represents county children’s service agencies.
The new grants likely will have especially significant ramifications for the foster-to-adopt system, said Scott Britton, the PCSAO’s assistant director.
Unlike costly private adoptions, Britton said foster-to-adopt situations are “practically free” for parents, meaning the $15,000 tier of the grant functionally is a completely new incentive for these types of adoptions.
Children’s services officials believe the $15,000 grant will create more interest in foster-to-adopt caregivers, who often are less well-off than those who seek private infant adoptions.
There are typically more than 3,000 children in the state’s foster-care network eligible to be adopted, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. The number has grown from 3,106 in 2018 to more than 3,400 for each of the last two years.
“I think that the more that we can draw attention to the fact that that some people want older children, they don’t necessarily want a baby, and that we have a number of children who range in age from preschool to high school who really need loving homes and permanency in their lives, the better,” Britton said.
Betsie Norris, the executive director of Adoption Network Cleveland, which provides resources for adoptive parents, adoptees and lobbies for policy changes in Columbus, also praised the new foster-care grant.
“People adopting a child out of foster care, they might not have the expenses to adopt,” Norris said. “But they certainly are going to have expenses meeting that child’s needs, helping a new child or sibling group coming into their family. I think that’s really great that that’s going to happen.”
Britton said his organization, which represents county children’s services agencies across the state, believes the $15,000 grant could be available to kinship caregivers, relatives who, after going through a state licensure process, get temporary custody of a child who’s been removed from their parents or guardians. State officials increasingly have promoted kinship care as an alternative to the foster-care network, because they help keep families more intact.
But, Britton said he and other children’s service officials are still trying to learn the details, some of which won’t be clear until state regulators set up the rules.
“This could provide some real support to those kin caregivers who traditionally have not enjoyed the same financial support as licensed foster caregivers,” Britton said.
But some advocates also worry the enticement of the grant money could cause some people to look past some of the challenges unique to the foster system. Many kids in the foster-care system have early-life traumas that don’t completely manifest until later in life. This can lead to parents eventually seeking to unwind adoptions, a traumatic and complex process.
“We want the desire to adopt to be first and the grant incentive to come along behind as a support,” Britton said. “You don’t want to incentivize people to adopt to otherwise might not necessarily have their heart into it.”
Some advocates also privately raised the concern that easier-to-access, up-front grants could cause some private adoption agencies to simply hike their fees, although some fees are limited by state law.
The $20,000 grant for families that adopt special-needs children also is a major expansion, doubling the previous $10,000 tax credit. Special-needs children often have extra medical expenses, and the higher grant is in recognition of that, Gavarone said.
The special-needs adoption grant will expand on existing county subsidies, which can be in the hundreds of dollars each month, but vary widely by county, paid to families that adopt special-needs children out of foster care.
Even the $10,000 grant for standard adoptions is a significant overhaul, despite the dollar amount being equal to the $10,000 state adoption tax credit that it will replace.
That’s because the old state tax credit was nonrefundable and served as a reimbursement for incurred adoption expenses. That meant to qualify for the full amount, someone would need to not only document $10,000 in qualifying expenses but also incur $10,000 in state income tax liability — which takes multiple years for households making less than around $300,000 a year — within a five-year period. Ninety-six percent of households who claimed the old state adoption credit in 2020 made less than $300,000, according to state tax data, while more than half made less than $100,000.
The new grant will be a single, up-front payment and comes with an accompanying state income tax deduction.
“It’s a significant change to help families adopt find children start their families,” said Gavarone, the Republican state senator.
