Tolkkinen: Without funding, state’s new child protection law will land hard on rural counties

In 2024, advocates from the state’s two most populous counties, Hennepin and Ramsey, pushed legislators to pass a law that would keep together African-American families and others who are disproportionately pulled into the child protection system.

Metro-area moms told heart-breaking stories about the deaths and injuries of their Black children in the foster care system when they shouldn’t have been removed from home in the first place. Advocates reported that Black families are more likely to get reported to child protective services and more likely to be treated harshly once there. Black children, they argued, are two to seven times more likely to be removed from their homes than white kids.

Advocates had been asking for help for years. This time, lawmakers passed the Minnesota African American Family Preservation and Child Welfare Disproportionality Act, which requires social service agencies to go beyond what they do now to keep Black families intact, as well as other families that are overrepresented in the system, such as those who have a disability or are poor.

For instance, child welfare workers would try diligently to place the child with a family member instead of with a stranger. In some circumstances, instead of simply recommending that a parent receive therapy, the county social worker would make the appointment with a culturally appropriate therapist and then drive them to the appointment.

In the House and Senate, a lawmaker asked a question: How will this legislation land in the rest of the state?

“I do have some concerns about that, how implementation goes statewide, outside the metro,” said Rep. Carlie Kotyza-Witthuhn, DFL-Eden Prairie.

Her question went unanswered during that hearing. It’s too bad, because across the state, counties are saying the legislation will cost them millions of dollars that they don’t have and require them to offer services that don’t exist in many rural places.

And honestly, that would probably benefit everyone. The county worker would get to spend extra time with the family and the family might blossom by seeing a therapist in a safe place who they might be more comfortable with.

To make that work, though, requires money.

Ramsey and Hennepin counties each received $2.5 million to begin phasing in the law this year. Greater Minnesota counties, which must start implementing the law in 2027, have so far not been allocated any funds, although their smaller tax base will incur significant costs.

Brown County, population 26,000, home to New Ulm, would have to come up with about $1.3 million to meet the requirements of the law, including about five extra workers, said Anne Broskoff, Brown County director of Human Services. I haven’t parsed Broskoff’s estimate, but it’s in line with what other counties say they will need. Brown County’s total budget is about $47.8 million, and commissioners are already hiking property taxes amid falling state and federal revenue.

“If the parents want to pursue culturally similar services, I just don’t know if I’m going to be able to establish those types of services here in Brown County,” Broskoff said. “We don’t have a lot of diversity here. We certainly have some, but not to the extent that the city has in which to support a thriving mental health practice.”

Sjostrom, Broskoff, and other administrators I spoke with in greater Minnesota said they like the idea behind the new law. But without the funding for extra staff or other expenses, the counties might not be able to do the extra work.

“The child protection system is already overwhelmed and pervasively understaffed,” the Minnesota County Attorneys Association wrote in a March 18, 2024, letter to the bill’s chief author in the Minnesota House.

Putting the law into practice will require “a substantial financial investment” in county resources and community services, the county attorneys said.

How the legislation would land in greater Minnesota isn’t the only question broached during that hearing that didn’t receive an adequate response.

Rep. Heather Keeler, a DFLer who represents part of Moorhead and serves as vice chair of the Children and Families Finance and Policy Committee, said the legislation might be unconstitutional. A similar law aimed at keeping Native American families together passes constitutional muster because the tribes have sovereignty, something that other groups don’t have, Keeler said.

She was shouted down, and the committee voted to advance the legislation.

Now, however, a Hennepin County District judge has halted the rollout of the program in the metro and indicated that the entire law might be unconstitutional because it singles out people based on race.