The announcement last week that the federal government would withhold approximately $177,000 from the Maine Department of Human Services over foster care administration sounded a lot worse than it was. While DHS should always act to avoid these kinds of mistakes, the federal government regularly disallows certain state expenses, just as the states regularly disallow certain local expenditures from, for example, Medicaid reimbursements for hospitals. Besides, DHS has bigger problems to confront.

Briefly, DHS lost the federal funding because it failed to properly determine the incomes of the biological parents of the some foster children and it fell behind on its licensing and fire inspections of a small minority of foster families. A review by federal auditors found some biological parents earning too much and found that the state’s attitude toward licensing is too relaxed. For instance, the state might have recognized that a foster family was working on some deficiency in the home and not press it to meet a strict deadline. The feds said a strict deadline is required.

The backlog for relicensing homes should also take care of itself because Maine, like 13 other states, switched to two-year licenses well before the federal report was completed. The Legislature last year agreed with DHS that a two-year license would allow the department to focus on homes that were having trouble meeting the standards by freeing up staff that would otherwise spend time annually relicensing foster homes that pass inspection easily. The extra help for some homes while inspecting those with successful records less often is a reasonable approach for a department with limited resources.

The department’s larger problems are going to be more difficult to solve. DHS and the state courts, which are an integral part of child-protective services, need to act more aggressively to find out what services broken families need to heal. They must ensure appropriate services are available from the start of the department’s contact with a family and that social-service professionals have the resources to do their jobs. This has not always been the case, resulting in harmed children that could have been helped and angry families that are certain they were not treated by DHS as they should have been.

These challenges require DHS to change from within by increasing its coordination among local offices, for instance, a change that already seems to be taking place. And it needs to find the resources to address understaffing in rural areas.

Two legislative committees – Judiciary and Health and Human Services – will begin statewide meetings on DHS next month. The Judiciary Committee will look at how to improve court standards and judicial proceedings; Human Services will focus on the treatment of children once they are in the state system. Both should provide ideas for substantial improvements. But as regrettable as the recent federal funding withdrawal was, neither should be distracted by this small event when larger ones loom.