FY22 Budget Testimony: Office of the Ombudsperson for Children
Children’s Law Center Executive Director Judith Sandalow testified before the DC Council’s Committee of the Whole Small Agencies Budget Hearing to urge the Council to ensure the Office of the Ombudsperson for Children is fully funded in the District’s FY22 budget. CLC represents the best interests of hundreds of children in foster care, as well as representing foster parents and relative caregivers of children who are in or at risk of entering DC’s child welfare system. While we commend DC’s Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) for significant recent progress, we recognize that CFSA cannot meet the needs of DC’s foster kids alone. We strongly believe the Office of the Ombudsperson for Children will play a significant role in helping to meet these needs and facilitate interagency cooperation between CFSA and its sister DC agencies.
The Council recognized the urgency and importance of establishing the Ombudsperson for Children to meeting the needs of DC’s foster children when it took the bold step of overriding the Mayor’s veto of the legislation. Now, we ask the Council to take this legislation over the finish line by committing the $800,000 in local recurring dollars needed to fully fund the Ombudsperson for Children.
Read the full testimony here: