Budget cuts would cost MO foster children millions in state aid. ‘Death blow’
Advocates and agencies that serve Missouri’s foster children are scrambling and searching for answers after a new Republican budget proposal aims to wipe out all their state funding.
Family Resource Centers across the state — including FosterAdopt Connect in the Kansas City area — learned late Saturday of the Missouri House’s version of the state budget unveiled by Rep. Dirk Deaton, a Seneca Republican, who chairs the budget committee. In Deaton’s proposal, the centers would lose millions and be unable to provide support for thousands of foster care kids and families.
“We were absolutely shocked,” said Melanie Scheetz, executive director of the Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition in St. Louis. “I mean, we were in the Governor’s budget and we’ve been checking with the budget office and just had no indication that this was going to happen.”
Since they learned of the proposed cuts, leaders and lobbyists of those centers have worked the phones and met with lawmakers to spread the word on the impact the cuts would have. The plan, they say, is to educate lawmakers about what the cuts would do so they’ll reverse course.
Deaton’s proposal would slash $10 million in state funding that the three Family Resource Centers receive. In turn, if those cuts were implemented, they would lose another $15 million in matching federal funds, the centers say. Those losses represent about a 70 percent reduction in budgets and services provided.
“It’s basically a death blow,” said Lori Ross, co-founder and CEO of FosterAdopt Connect. “It’s not a reduction. … It’s totally eliminating the service, and we haven’t been able to find out why.
“I’d love an answer to that question.”
Cuts come as Missouri faces a major budget shortfall after years of being propped up by federal pandemic aid. For months, state officials have warned about the state’s more grim financial reality. Democrats, for their part, argue a series of recent tax cuts have compounded the problem.
Kehoe, for example, last summer slashed from the state budget $511 million in projects approved by state lawmakers. The governor is recommending that lawmakers cut more than $600 million from the state’s operating budget.
Though Deaton seemed to soften his stance Wednesday evening as House Democrats attempted to restore a portion of the funding during a budget hearing late Wednesday night — and some lawmakers are confident there will be changes to the proposal — advocates say they worry about the coming weeks.
“If this doesn’t get turned around,” Ross said, “I just don’t know what’s going to happen to these kids.”
What the proposed cuts would mean
The loss of $25 million would mean the three centers in the state — which serve 15 rural and urban communities covering every pocket of the state — would have to cut programs and staff and not serve thousands of families currently being served.
“We exist to fill the gaps in services for families and individuals that are affected by the child welfare system,” said Josh Hollingsworth, chief advancement officer at FosterAdopt Connect. “Our agencies grew out of lived experience navigating a complicated system and developed programs from real world experience to meet unmet needs.”
Among the services the centers provide is housing for youth, crisis intervention, in-home behavioral support, trauma therapy, adoption family finding and post-adoption support and specialized training for families caring for children with elevated needs.
That’s why the cuts would hit deep, center leaders say.
“It will eliminate our ability to provide behavioral stability services to keep kids stable in care,” Ross said. “It’ll eliminate our ability to provide prevention services that prevent families from having their kids brought into care.
“It’ll prevent us from serving relative and kinship families. … Kids aging out (of foster care) will have zero support.”
The Children’s Division, Missouri’s child welfare agency, was not initially aware of the new funding cuts for Family Resource Centers in the House’s version of the state budget, Ross said.
Scheetz, in St. Louis, said she’s been in contact with Sara Smith, the director of Missouri’s Children’s Division this past week. Smith is “so supportive of what we do,” Scheetz said.
“She’s been texting and emailing back and forth, ‘What can we do? What can we do?’” Scheetz said. “The Children’s Division deeply appreciates the services that we provide so that families can stay together.”
Signs of hope
When House Democrats attempted to restore a portion of the funding Wednesday night, they explained to fellow lawmakers in a budget hearing that the organizations impacted by the proposed cuts serve tens of thousands of families and kids across the state.
“I would love to have more conversations about this so we can find a way to fund these organizations doing the most important work to support families, support children within our foster care system,” said Rep. Kimberly-Ann Collins, a St. Louis Democrat who sought to restore the funding.
Deaton, in response, said he wasn’t sure how Collins’ effort would work financially. However, the Republican budget chair signaled that he would be open to discussing a way to restore the funding when the budget reached the House floor in the coming weeks.
“I know the FRCs provide value and it’s not that I don’t appreciate what they do and I do think that there’s probably a place that we could get to that’s some sort of at least partial restoration that I’d be interested in,” Deaton said. “I’d like to continue to work on that and maybe address that more on the floor.”
In response to Deaton’s comments, Democrats agreed to table the effort until the budget reached the full House.
After that hearing, Rep. Betsy Fogle, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, told The Star that she spoke with several Republicans who expressed willingness to restore portions of the funding. She said she was “cautiously optimistic” about those prospects.
“We understand we need to have enough revenue to pay our bills,” said Fogle, a Springfield Democrat. “We are uncomfortable doing that on the backs of children in foster care across the state and that is something you’ll hear us talk about.”
Advocates and agency leaders say in the coming days they will continue to educate legislators on what their Family Resource Centers do and what Missouri would lose if their funding was decreased.
“We’re going to rally our families,” Ross said. “There’s going to be a lot of things happening over the next several weeks.”
Scheetz said they’ll “be in this mode through the weekend and all through next week, when our legislators are home for spring break.”
“And I’m very hopeful that when they hear about the work that we do, that you know, they will understand the importance,” Scheetz said. “... We’re going to win it back.”
The Star’s Jack Harvel contributed to this report.
This story was originally published March 13, 2026 at 10:28 AM.
