Adoption Assistance Payments for a Few Central Ohio Counties, as of October, 2022
Second in a Series
In our last episode, we looked at the Adoption Assistance payments of a few Southwest Ohio counties, complied from ODJFS October, 2022 data. In depicting adoption assistance payments from a few Central Ohio counties, I also added the county’s population and its rank among Ohio’s 87 other counties. I was sort of wondering if there was any obvious relationship between county size and the amount of the monthly payment.
County Franklin Delaware Licking Clark Union Knox Madison
Population 1,371,924 226,097 182,128 135,302 65,928 63,621 43,941
Pop. Rank 1 12 17 21 36 40 54
AA Children 1,943 42 615 250 32 35 20
Max Payment $3,315 $850 $1,800 $2,500 $1,045 $2,000 $1,200
$0 Payments 63 12 15 3 7 0 0
Mean $743 $353 $550 $585 $346 $663 $450
Median $700 $310 $500 $500 $300 $550 $500
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As one might expect, “Metro” counties like Franklin and Hamilton make higher adoption assistance payments. And the gap between the high paying and low paying counties is a large one.
So far, there are no other obvious patterns. Counties of similar size not only differ significantly in the size of their adoption assistance payments, but in the number of adoption assistance cases and the number of children with deferred $0 payment adoption assistance agreements.
Delaware, the 12th largest county in the state, for example, has relatively low adoption assistance payments, as well as a strikingly low number of adoption assistance cases. Licking, on the other hand, Ohio’s 17th largest county has significantly higher adoption assistance cases and a much larger volume of cases.
Going forward, we may run across key factors that help explain the differences in adoption assistance payment. We shall see. Already, we are beginning to see the widespread variation in Ohio’s “County Administered” child welfare system.
NOTE: These figures were compiled before the state raised its non-federal financial participation rate from adoption assistance payments of $250 per month to payments of $350 per month. See “Breaking News” post. It will be interesting to see if mean and median county rates increase in 2023.