After Aug. 28, Missouri will end the state’s longstanding practice of seizing foster children’s Social Security benefits to cover the cost of foster care.
Gov. Mike Kehoe on Wednesday signed a bill that also bans child marriage and stop child sex abusers from using non-disclosure agreements to silence their victims. The bill was sponsored by Republican state Rep. Melissa Schmidt of Eldridge, and handled by Republican state Sen. Jamie Burger of Benton in the upper chamber.
Missouri’s child welfare agency takes millions of dollars each year in foster children’s benefits and uses the money to help pay for foster care. In fiscal year 2024, the Children’s Division spent more than $10.6 million recovered from children’s benefits. Over 1,200 foster kids were receiving benefits in Missouri of late last year, or just over 10% of all kids in care.
As a result, kids who are orphaned or have disabilities are responsible for paying toward the cost of their care in state custody.
The bill bars the state from using those benefits to pay itself back for routine foster care expenses. Instead, the division could use the funds for the child’s “unmet needs” beyond what the division is obligated to pay, such as housing as the child prepares to age out of foster care.
The effort to ban the practice won bipartisan support during the 2024 session and was on the verge of passing. But it died when GOP infighting forced the state Senate to adjourn early.
The foster benefits ban was the starting point for the bill, with other provisions, including the ban on child marriage added when it reached the state Senate.
Other provisions include:
- Increasing a tax credit for donations to certain youth programs.
- Stating that the state Children’s Division cannot hold itself harmless in contracts with private service providers when there are issues resulting from the state’s negligence.
- Requiring Children’s Division caseworkers to present identification of themselves when conducting investigations of child abuse and neglect, and inform parents of their rights.
- Requiring the Children’s Division to take into consideration the religion of the foster child when determining placement, in order to ensure children are in households of a similar religion to their families’ when practicable.
Child marriage ban
Under current Missouri law, anyone under 16 is prohibited from getting married. But 16 and 17 year olds can get married with parental consent to anyone under 21.
Under the new law, which goes into effect Aug. 28, marriage for anyone under age 18 will be illegal.
The bill garnered bipartisan support, but an outspoken group of Republican lawmakers condemned the child marriage ban — saying they knew couples who were married as teens and are still together and warning that more teens would get abortions if they couldn’t marry.
“There are legitimate reasons for people 16, 17 to become married,” state Rep. Dean Van Schoiack, a Savannah Republican, said during an April House debate. “A pregnancy could be a legitimate reason to become married, for one thing.”
Last year, the bill stalled due to GOP critics.
In 2023 Republican state Sen. Mike Moon’s opposition to the child marriage ban garnered national attention when he said: “Do you know any kids who have been married at age 12? I do. And guess what? They’re still married.”
The bill also voids nondisclosure agreements in childhood sexual abuse cases and expands access to legal counsel for families in child abuse and neglect cases.
This story was originally published by the Missouri Independent.
