Pay Increase for Foster Parents Helping

Laramie, Wy – Wyoming foster parents say the pay raise
the Wyoming Legislature approved for them this spring is helping them cover the costs of raising children.
The Legislature approved the first increase in 25 years in the amount the state pays foster parents. The state's long-time rate had paid foster parents 400 dollars per month per child.
Under the new schedule, foster parents receive between 645 dollars and 732 dollars per month for each child.
Pat Hans of Casper is president of the Wyoming Foster-Adopt Parents Association.
Hans told the Legislature last spring that the state's old rate wasn't enough, particularly when foster parents sometimes need to clothe babies and children taken from homes contaminated by the production of methamphetamine. She said that all of a child's belongings need to be replaced in such cases.
The Legislature this spring approved a two-year, 4-point-8 million appropriation for the new pay schedule. It tracks the U-S Department of Agriculture's estimates of the cost of raising children in rural areas.