Political Attention and Political Support are not the same thing. We believe the chart below is evidence of the difference.
Louisiana’s legislature gives steady attention to the Department of Children and Family Services (“DCFS”). Senators and Representatives, individually and in committees, have focused intently on DCFS because they desire the best for Louisiana’s children. Reports of children dying during the pre-custody period of DCFS’s involvement in their lives make the Legislature’s attention on DCFS even more important.
However, despite decades of political attention, Louisiana’s Child Welfare Services still struggle. Considering the Essential Infrastructure of Child Welfare Services, we know Political Support drives Adequate Funding. With this in mind, the Center for Child Well-being examined a collection of Louisiana Governor’s Executive Budgets, Executive Budget Supporting Documents, 10A Department of Children and Family Services, and House Bill 1’s from FY 2004-2005 through FY 2026-2027 to determine Louisiana’s annual Child Welfare Services budget history.
Note, we did not look at DCFS’s total budget, but only at twenty years of DCFS’s budgeted expenditures for Child Welfare Services.
The Missing Years
There is an obvious gap in the chart above. During the period from FY 2010-2011 to FY 2015-2016, we found no line item for Child Welfare Services in the Governor’s Executive Budgets.
During the Jindal administration, the state budgets variously mixed child welfare services expenditures with behavioral health, early childhood development, licensing, and crisis intervention, or with eligibility and enrollment, and economic security under “Field Services Program”. The absence of a Child Welfare Services line item during this six-year period makes clear reporting impossible.
The Lost Dollars
First, the chart above is not a chart of DCFS’s financials. It is a chart of the total funds Louisiana budgeted each year for Child Welfare Services alone. Total funds comprise state funds appropriated, total interagency transfers, fees and self-generated revenue, statutory dedications, and federal and other funds. The chart reports Louisiana’s total annual Child Welfare Services budgets.
Second, in nominal dollars, Louisiana’s budget has increased from $20.3 billion in 2006 to $46.9 billion in 2026, an increase of $26.6 billion and a percentage increase of 231%.
Over the same period, the DSS/DCFS budget shrank by 33%, from $1,030,643,514 in 2006 to $792,356,807 in 2026. This is a reduction of $238,286,707. The duties of DCFS have changed over the years, and services have moved under and out of DCFS’s umbrella. The Center has not explored these transitions to form an opinion on DCFS’s budget history.
Third, the Center for Child Well-being has considered the annual budgets for Louisiana’s Child Welfare Services. After tracing the history of Child Welfare Services funding and comparing that history to the impact of inflation, we believe that Louisiana significantly underfunds Child Welfare Services.
Louisiana budgeted $440,952,152 for Child Welfare Services in 2006. Twenty years later, Louisiana budgeted $429,839,142 for Child Welfare Services in 2026. This represents a reduction of $11,113,010, or 3% less.
To account for inflation alone, the $440 million would need to be $721,796,677 in 2026. Louisiana’s 2026 funding for Child Welfare Services is short by roughly $292 million.
Like any endeavor that might try to operate a going concern on twenty-year-old financials, DCFS struggles.
Not only has Louisiana budgeted $11 million less in nominal dollars for Child Welfare Services in 2026 compared to 2006, but in real dollars compared to 2006, Louisiana’s Child Welfare Services are underfunded by nearly $292 million in 2026.
And that $292 million shortage occurred not only in 2026. Inflationary shortfalls occurred every year. Not including the six unknown Jindal years, if Louisiana had funded DCFS’s Child Welfare Services to account for inflation during the last two decades, the state would have spent an additional $3,663,695,000 on Child Welfare Services.
Some may think, “that’s not possible.” Perhaps not, but over the twenty-year period when Child Welfare Services’ budget declined by $11 million in nominal dollars, the state’s total budget increased by $26.6 billion.
It may not be an apples-to-apples comparison, but the chart below shows the growth of Louisiana’s state budget compared to the reduction in Louisiana’s Child Welfare Services budget over the last twenty years. Attention is not support.
The preceding blog post is an excerpt from a paper in process, “Reinvigorating Louisiana’s Child Welfare Services: Structure, Safety, Support, and Suggestions”.
