Troubled Foster Care Agency Will Repay Kansas $9.4 Million

A troubled Kansas foster care management provider has reached an agreement with the state to repay $9.4 million in unspent grant funds.

The deal that the Kansas Department for Children and Families announced it had reached Tuesday with St. Francis Ministries comes on the heels of earlier controversies.

In January, Nebraska agreed to pay millions more to St. Francis after it significantly underbid the company that used to provide child welfare services in the Omaha area. Kansas officials also said they found St. Francis employees had falsified documents to show visits with families that never took place.

Kansas state DCF spokesman Mike Deines said the grant repayment agreement is unrelated to the falsified document claims. A state audit is pending.

The agency said in a news release that the repayment stems from a requirement that case management providers come up with a plan to reinvest unspent funds into their child welfare programming. The release said St. Francis provided a preliminary plan, but it was never finalized and sent to DCF for approval.

St. Francis interim CEO William Clark said in a statement that the goal is “always to do what is best for children and families, while also being good stewards of the resources entrusted to us.”