Senate Bill 268 Summary

• Changes adoption subsidy payments from discretionary to mandatory for eligible adoptive parents of children with special needs, requiring the department of child services to enter into written agreements with all qualifying families.

• Requires the department to allocate sufficient funds from the adoption assistance account to make all required subsidy payments, eliminating the previous practice of limiting new agreements based on available funds.

• Prohibits the department from terminating existing adoption subsidy agreements due to insufficient funds in the adoption assistance account.

• Repeals provisions that allowed the department to approve new adoption subsidy agreements only for children who were department wards at the time of adoption petition or to prioritize funding for such children when insufficient funds existed.

• Takes effect July 1, 2014.