Parental Fees assessed by the state


Morning!  After the AMSSA regional meeting last week and the discussion around parental fees assessed by the state, I want to dig deeper.  I believe that this has been asked before in a difference way, but here it goes…

  1. Parental fees that are not state assessed---what is your method for figuring/determining the fees? 
  2. Has your agency weighed the pros/cons or your method of assessing?
  3. Are you willing to share your policy?

I am asking these questions because we currently use the CS worksheet to determine ours and after the conversation about the state assessed fees, I’m not sure that we are accomplishing our goal by using this method.  We are hitting the families that are normally at rock bottom with huge fees in comparison to their actual means, I struggle with this.  I’d appreciate any feedback, good or bad, that you are willing to share.



Thank you!



Jen Albjerg

Fiscal Manager

Grant County Social Services

Grant County Highway Dept

Region IV Adult Mental Health Initiative


Phone:  218-685-8218

Fax:  218-685-4978

4 comments:

Jessie- Winona said...

Great questions and would love to hear what other counties use. When we receive the financials back from the parents then we use the MA PF schedule, otherwise they are billed the full amount of placement if nothing in turned in.

Anonymous said...

I have this same issue. The worker that did these 2 workers ago had used something similar to the parental fee worksheet the state uses, I believe. At some point, they switched to using the child support calculator. I would really like for there to be a policy for everyone to use to do this the same. With everyone doing it different, you get many different answers to questions and then need to decide what route to take.

Bobbi Sivonen said...

I'm still trying to figure out how to use this. I posted the previous comment that posted as Anonymous.

Lynette G. said...

For all out-of-home placements, Isanti County uses the state fee schedule as set out in DHS-2977. Two years ago, I evaluated using this schedule versus the social services fee schedule. I determined that there would have been a difference in parental fees in only two of our out-of-home placements, so it was not worth switching.