Budget stalemate threatens social services

Harrisburg remains mired in a seven-week-old budget stalemate that is fraying Pennsylvania’s social safety net.

Harrisburg remains mired in a seven-week-old budget stalemate that is fraying Pennsylvania’s social safety net. Social service providers say they’re using up all their credit waiting for the general assembly to pass a budget so that they can get reimbursed for services they have already provided.

Listen: [audio: 090820spfoster.mp3]

Lansdowne resident Janice Triplett is foster mother to a 12-year-old boy who needs extra tutoring to bring him up to grade level. She says so far, she’s gotten her foster care payments. But she’s worried the extra funds to help her foster son will dry up soon.

Triplett: It makes me really concerned because the children are the ones that are suffering and they’ve already been through so much, and to disrupt their lives again will be drastic.

Philadelphia officials say if the budget impasse continues, they will have to place some foster children in shelters, and return some to juvenile detention centers.