Senate Bill No. 357 Summary

• Department of Child Services must enter into adoption subsidy agreements with all eligible adoptive parents of children with special needs, rather than having discretion to do so.

• Department must allocate sufficient funds from its budget to the adoption assistance account to make required subsidy payments.

• Department is prohibited from terminating adoption subsidy agreements due to insufficient funds in the adoption assistance account.

• Repeals provisions that prevented the department from approving new subsidy agreements for children who were not wards of the department and that required prioritizing funding for children who were or had been wards.

• Effective July 1, 2011.