Programs for kids deserve funding

With an estimated $305 million in tax revenues recently added to the state’s economic forecast, Washington legislators can be expected to arrive in Olympia next month with proposals to spend the windfall many times over. Gov. Christine Gregoire has told them to cool their jets.

The governor’s fiscal discipline is sound advice, but there is more to wise public stewardship than simply tucking the new revenues under a mattress. Not spending at all isn’t always as prudent as spending effectively. If state officials remember that, there will be hope for a couple of Spokane programs whose ability to help abused and neglected children was jeopardized recently when the Department of Social and Health Services slashed their budgets.

The cuts had nothing to do with dissatisfaction over services provided. Rather, DSHS was scrambling to correct its own $12 million in overspending by the Children’s Administration division. Fiscal correction is in order, but indiscreetly spreading the cutbacks across all existing programs without first prioritizing on the basis of urgency and effectiveness is not responsible administration.

The two Spokane programs heavily impacted are Partners with Families and Children and the Martin Luther King Jr. Center. Between them they work with hundreds of children, and their families, helping them overcome the tragic consequences of domestic violence and substance abuse – influences that send costly repercussions rippling through the criminal justice system, and the social-service network. The cost borne by society in the form of crime and corrections facilities dwarfs the investment in prevention that is now being withdrawn.

While that wisdom has been ignored in the across-the-board cost-savings strategy used by DSHS, it is not lost on an impressive array of community voices who have spoken up on behalf of Partners and MLK. Republicans, Democrats, business leaders, social workers, health care providers, law enforcement professionals, educators, clergy and concerned community members have urged the state to preserve these vital local programs.

As Mary Ann Murphy, director of Partners with Families and Children, has noted, by leveraging the money it gets from the state, the program can deliver a dollar’s worth of services for every dollar received. In addition, the program’s ability to achieve results, in the form of salvaged lives, has been documented and celebrated at a national level.

There’s a strong case to be made to the Legislature when it convenes on Jan. 9, but the funding cuts take effect Jan. 1. Restoring them by then depends on whether DSHS leaders recognize the unreasonableness of fixing its own mismanagement by penalizing successful providers of essential services.