Committee votes do-pass on bill clarifying guardianship subsidy and foster-home review period

At a House Human Services Committee hearing, members voted to give House Bill 1072 a do-pass recommendation. The department-request bill clarifies use of public funds for guardianship subsidy and sets a five-year lookback for child-welfare history reviews of prospective or current foster-care providers.

Kelsey Bliss, licensing unit administrator for Children and Family Services at the North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services, testified the changes are intended for clarity and consistency with administrative practice. "As a leader in North Dakota child welfare, it's important to have clarity in Century Code that governs our administrative rules and policy," Bliss said. She told the committee that guardianship subsidy is reimbursed using federal funds under the federal Guardianship Assistance program, and that state general funds are an allowable alternative for children who do not meet federal eligibility.

Section 1 of the bill explicitly acknowledges the use of state or federal public funds for guardianship subsidy; witnesses said the change does not require additional appropriations because the practice is already in the department's base budget. Section 2 authorizes the department to review current and historical child-welfare court involvement in an applicant’s home and proposes a five-year window for that review. Bliss said the five-year specification aligns the foster-home review period with the time frame required for adoption home studies to provide consistency between foster-care and adoption screening.

Representative Fralick asked whether a household could include multiple related caregivers when a child’s custody changed; Bliss and Desiree Sorensen, director of the McKenzie Human Service Zone, explained guardianship and safety-plan practices that can allow a relative (for example, a grandparent) to become the legal custodian while other household relationships continue to exist under supervision.

Desiree Sorensen testified in support of the bill and said the changes will "provide critical supports to eliminate existing barriers to timely and appropriate permanency planning for youth in our foster care system." The committee recorded a unanimous do-pass recommendation; Representative Belz moved the do-pass motion and it passed on a recorded roll call with all recorded members voting yes.

The committee advanced the bill and instructed staff to prepare the committee report.