Free Declaration in Support - District Court of California - California

Case 3:07-cv-05086-WHA

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UNITED STATES DISTR1CT f O U R T . NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO DIVISION

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Certified Copy

CALIFORNIA FOSTER PARENT ASSOCIATION, CALIFORNIA STATE CARE PROVIDERS ASSOCIATION, AND LEGAL ADVOCATES FOR PERMANENT PARENTING, PLAINTIFFS, vs. No. C 07 5086 WHA

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JOHN A. WAGNER,

DIRECTOR OF THE

CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES, IN HIS. OFFICIAL DEPUTY

CAPACITY; MARY AULT,

DIRECTOR OF THE CHILDREN AND FAMILY SERVICES DIVISION OF THE CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES, CAPACITY, DEFENDANTS. IN HER OFFICIAL

VIDEOTAPED DEPOSITION OF GLENN FREITAS THURSDAY, MAY 8, 2008

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You may answer. BY MR. TABESH:
Q

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Would the legislature ask your

department to do that? A ways. It could come about in a variety of It could come about initiated by the

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administration; it could come about initiated by the legislature. So I don't recall at that time

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how that was initiated.
Q

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Do you remember if any of your staff

members ever tried to initiate new legislation that would result in higher payments to foster care providers? MR. PRINCE: compound. You may answer. THE WITNESS: BY MR. TABESH:
Q
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Objection.

Assumes facts,

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Not independently.

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What do you mean "not independently"? Well, there's a protocol for doing

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anything that suggests increases to the general fund.
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Can you explain this protocol to me? I'll try. Okay. Just do the best of your

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staff members made proposals that the rates should increase? A I think we made -- we did analyses

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around what the rate would look like if this was an increase. But I can't exactly recall whether

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or not on an annualized basis we developed full proposals, for example, to bring it forward as a budget item, let's say. But we certainly

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recognized the CNI movement. You have to remember at that time or soon thereafter California was in -- well, it was in a similar budget situation as it is now. So

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there weren't a lot of proposals with significant impact to the general fund that were moving forward and, in particular, those that cost a significant amount of general fund. But we certainly did -- in one year, I do not recall the year, propose a schedule somewhat different than we had at the time in terms of varying the level of increase depending on the placement. In other words, we recognize that what we would typically call lower levels of care or care by relatives or foster homes, if we cannot reunify a child with a family, that those were

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preferable. And so we talked about whether or not there was a fee schedule that could provide some incentive structure to those lower level of care homes.
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And you did make a proposal? We made a proposal, although that, I

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don't recall if it got out of the department or got out of finance. got stalled.
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I can't remember where that

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So once you prepared the proposal, to

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whom would the proposal be submitted?
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It would go through the chain of command

through our deputy director, discussions with our chief deputy and ultimately director. that, once clearing those areas, And pass

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it would have

ended up going through our agency and then to the Department of Finance. case, Q And in that particular

I just don't recall where that stopped. Are you aware of a proposal that went

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through this process all the way to the Department of Finance? MR. PRINCE: described it. BY MR. TABESH: Asked and answered.

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aware providers had made complaints about the inadequacy of the rates they were being paid. it fair to say that, you know, the inadequacy would suggest that those rates were insufficient to cover these categories? MR. PRINCE: Objection. Mischaracterizes his Is

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testimony, compound, calls for conjure and ambiguous. You may answer. Also assumes facts. THE WITNESS: BY MR. TABESH:
Q

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Can you ask that again?

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Okay.

So you were aware that there were

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complaints from foster care providers that the rates that they were being paid were inadequate; is that correct?
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Yes.

And it would be more in terms of

the complaints had more to do with not keeping up with the cost of living. Q A
Q

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Okay. Generally. In terms of not keeping up with cost of

living, is it your understanding that the types of -- let me strike that, please. Was it your understanding that the

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failure to keep up with the increase in cost of living were impacting the provider's ability to provide these categories of services to their foster children? MR. PRINCE: Objection. Foundation, calls

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for conjecture, compound. You may answer. THE WITNESS: BY MR. TABESH:
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I don't know -- generally, yes.

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Okay. Having said that, caregivers have live in different parts of the

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different state.

Cost factors vary throughout the state,

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yet the state has a single cost structure, if you will.
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Yes. So without trying to analyze where

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someone lives in the context of being able to provide these services on the current rate, there's a fair amount of analysis that probably would need to go into that. But generally

speaking, these would be the factors that would be -- yeah, included as that maintenance payment and related to the cost of living.
Q

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During the period of 19 -- I'm sorry,

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1999 to 2006, were you aware of any studies that were done by your department that would determine whether the foster care maintenance payments were sufficient to cover, for example, food?
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Not that I'm aware of. How about for clothing? Not that I'm aware of. Shelter? No. Is it fair to say that for each of these

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Q
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categories, you're not aware of a study done by your department to determine whether the foster care maintenance payments were sufficient to cover any particular category?
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Not by my department.

And I'm not

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familiar with -- because of the timing in 1999, my start, what the department utilized to construct the rate structure to begin with.
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Uh-huh.

Are you aware of any studies

relied upon by your department but not generated by your department that would have determined whether foster care maintenance payments were sufficient to cover any single category? MR. PRINCE: Assumes facts.

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You may answer.

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And so you can see where it says, "Shall

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be adjusted by the percentage changes in the California Necessities Index. And can you tell

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me what your understanding of the California Necessities Index is or what your understanding was during that time period?
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Yeah.

I mean, it's a schedule of

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changes that are essentially driven by cost of living. In fact, some folks sort of coined the But I

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-- flop those two terms back and forth.

don't know what the necessities index includes or entails or how it's constructed.
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Is that to flop two terms back and which two terms? Cost of living. Okay. And it's your understanding that

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forth,
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the complaints that you were receiving that you had heard about from providers related to the fact that the foster care maintenance payments were not accounting for increases in the cost of living?
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Correct. And what's your understanding of the

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last clause in this sentence, nsubject to the availability of funds"? What was your

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understanding during that time period? have an understanding?
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Yeah.

My understanding was

is that

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it's subject to appropriation by the state legislature and the Governor and the budget.
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So basically that basically means that

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in the state legislature and the Governor's budget makes the funds available to your department then you provide them as foster care maintenance payments?
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Yes, to the extent that the states

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budget allows for that.
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What do you mean? So for example, the state doesn't make

money out of a machine.
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Right. So if revenues allow the state to

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construct its budget such that there are sufficient revenues to cover all of its expenditures and this is one of the expenditures, then yes would be the answer to your question.
Q

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Okay.

I'm also going to introduce a new

exhibit.

I think we are 25.

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(Exhibit 25 was marked for identification.) BY MR. TABESH:

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So on balance I'm not sure about whether there was, you know, how much of that discussion within the administration of a department there was. BY MR. TABESH:
Q

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Do you remember people contending that

the rate of the foster care payments were sufficient to cover care and supervision of foster children?
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Within my department? Yeah. Certainly in hallway conversations, some

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would question, some of the higher levels about seemingly those seemed sufficient. But having

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said that, I suspect there was no strict analysis to
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Sure. -- around that. But certainly there

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were opinions of folk who suggested, for example, that some of the group home providers' rates were fairly significant in the context of overall costs and just from a general appearance standpoint.
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Do you remember ever questioning whether

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