Foster Care Is Targeted

State Controller Kathleen Connell has formed an advocacy group to lobby legislators and others on behalf of foster children.

“I want to become the muscle for the foster care effort here in California,” she said.

The first order of business: to defend foster care programs in what promises to be a “particularly brutal budget season.”

Connell, who is serving her last year as controller, said she has not worked out all the details of how the group will operate. Her plan is to pull together a range of children’s advocates to solve the problems of the long-troubled foster care system. She said her office will provide professional staff to get the group started.

The controller’s office pays the state’s bills and conducts audits of how state money is spent. Although the office has no direct responsibility for foster care, a lawyer for Connell said the controller can recommend plans for managing and improving the ways public revenue is used.

Connell said she came up with the idea for the group--launched Friday in a conference call with prospective members--while auditing child welfare programs in Los Angeles and Sacramento. She won’t say much about what flaws she found in the system--the audit results won’t be released until next month--but said a statewide leadership void was among them.

Child advocates, legislators, child welfare professionals, the head of the state department charged with overseeing foster care programs, and representatives of Gov. Gray Davis disagree with her diagnosis.

“Our group, like thousands of other groups in California, represents the interests of the most vulnerable children in California,” said Alan Watahara, head of the nonprofit California Children’s Lobby, which has been working the halls in Sacramento since 1971. “There are clearly people speaking for these kids.”

He had not heard of Connell’s effort, but said he thought leadership would more appropriately come from an official with the power to implement the reforms.

“As a member of the foster care musculoskeletal system in Sacramento, we are always in favor of more muscle,” said Frank Mecca, executive director of the County Welfare Directors Assn. “But like any complex organism, we have many important muscles and there are people who have been muscling this issue ... for 30 years.”

Mecca pointed to the Legislature’s increase in funding in the area for the last two years and the Democratic caucus’ push last year for a substantial increase, a plan eroded by the state’s deficit.

“This is something we have devoted a great deal of time to,” said Assemblyman Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks), until recently speaker of the lower house. “I’m not saying it’s perfect--it needs a lot of money--but it’s not an issue that has not gotten attention.”

Rita L. Saenz, director of the Department of Social Services, said that reforming the troubled child welfare system was the first mandate she was given when she was appointed. She assembled an advisory group two years ago that is moving toward that goal.

But Connell said she thinks Saenz is politically hamstrung.

“If you are a subcabinet secretary and the governor has a tight budget proposal that’s moving forward, then it’s very difficult for you to go outside that and ask for more money,” Connell said. “They have certain restraints that I don’t have.”