Safe Families Act of 1997
Adoption and Safe Families Act
of 1997
(Public Law 105-89)
SEC. 203. Performance of States
in Protecting Children.
(a) ANNUAL REPORT ON STATE PERFORMANCE.—Part E of title IV of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 670 et seq.) is amended by addition at the end of the following:
SEC.479A. Annual
Report.
The Secretary, in consultation with Governors, State legislatures, State and local public officials responsible for administering child welfare programs, and child welfare advocates, shall:
(1) develop a set of outcome measures (including length of stay in foster care, number of foster care placements, and number of adoptions) that can be used to assess the performance of States in operating child protection and child welfare programs pursuant to parts B and E to ensure the safety of children;
(2) to the maximum extent possible, the outcome measures should be developed from data available from the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System;
(3) develop a system for rating the performance of States with respect to the outcome measures and provide to the States an explanation of the rating system and how scores are determined under the rating system;
(4) prescribe such regulations as may be necessary to ensure that States provide to the Secretary the data necessary to determine State performance with respect to each outcome measure, as a condition of the State receiving funds under this part; and
(5) on May 1, 1999, and annually thereafter, prepare and submit to the Congress a report on the performance of each State on each outcome measure, which shall examine the reasons for high performance and low performance and, where possible, make recommendations as to how State performance could be improved.
(b) DEVELOPMENT OF PERFORMANCE-BASED INCENTIVE SYSTEM.—The Secretary of Health and Human Services, in consultation with State and local public officials responsible for administering child welfare programs and child welfare advocates, shall study, develop, and recommend to Congress and incentive system to provide payments under parts B and E of title IV of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 620 et seq., 670 et seq.) to any State based on the State's performance under such a system. Such a system shall, to the extent the Secretary determines feasible and appropriate, be based on the annual report required by section 479A of the Social Security Act (as added by subsection (a) of this section) or on any proposed modifications of the annual report. Not later than 6 months after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall submit to the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Finance of the senate a progress report on the feasibility, timetable, and consultation process for conducting such a study. Not later than 15 months after such date of enactment, the Secretary shall submit to the Committee of Ways and Means of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Finance of the Senate the final report on a performance-based incentive system. The report may include other recommendations for restructuring the program and payments under parts B and E of title IV of the Social Security Act.
Return to Table of Contents
