Welcome To The Michigan Foster Care Show!

Welcome to the Michigan Foster Care Show!


Why did this bill from 2007 pass so quickly in the final days of this legislature?  


Could it be the federal settlement agreement pending sanctions?


Could it be a desperate plea from administrators to elected officials to divert attention from the federal violations of law within the child welfare system in order to keep their jobs?


Or could it be concessions with the Michigan Children's Institute to keep the newly elected Governor Snyder in the dark of its omnipotence?  You see, it was the Superintendent who granted the decision to adopt, despite the evidence.


What, you thought only the court had the power to grant?  Oh no, my dear readers, the Superintendent possesses the powers of the court to "consent or withhold" the grant of adoption.  


So why does the Superintendent have so much authority in the judicial branch?  Because he is a civil servant of the executive branch!  See, in Michigan, one must prove his decisions were arbitrary and capricious, not that they were false or improper decisions, just whimsical.  


Bill Johnson has a divinity degree.  Therefore all his decisions are directly told to him from God and as such are not whimsical.  But the best part is the Superintendent not only is a vessel for the word of God, he is represents the State of Michigan without being appointed or elected, with no oath of office filed in the great repository of the state.


If you think this was a horrible life experience the Amers lived through, there are tens of thousands of other families in the state who have experienced the same thing, if not worse.


Keep in mind, the language of the new law, "fit".  The relatives still have to go through screening, in which the state still has stricter standards than with reunification efforts.


All in all, including the monetary incentive, it is better than nothing.  It's a start.

Relatives get power in foster care bill

Mark Hicks / The Detroit News

Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed into law Tuesday a bill requiring the state to give special consideration to relatives when placing children in Michigan's foster care system.

"This is a victory," said Rehab Amer of Dearborn, who had three children taken away and raised in foster care. "No child can go through what we went through."

Rehab Amer and her husband, Ahmed, had pushed for the bill, known as the Amer Act.

The Amers lost custody of their children when Rehab was accused of killing her 2-year-old son, Samier, in 1985. She was acquitted a year later.

Nearly 20 years after the boy's death, Wayne Circuit Court ordered the cause of death be changed to accidental on the death certificate. Medical experts said Samier had a rare brittle bone disease.

Meanwhile, the children were adopted, their names were changed, and they were raised in a Christian home in Clarkston. The Amers are Muslim.

Michigan Foster Care Relative Placement 2010

Michigan still will not reinstate parental rights.

The Three Fraudketeers

Well, well, well, what do we have here?  It's the Three Fraudketeers.

We have over here, Mr. Senate Bill 891 (a.k.a. Mark Jansen.)

Public Act 220 of 1935 authorizes the MCI superintendent to consent to the adoption, marriage, or emancipation of any child who has been committed to the MCI, according to applicable law. Under the bill, the superintendent's designee would have the same authority. In addition, the superintendent or his or her designee would be authorized to consent to the guardianship of any child committed to the MCI, as provided in Section 19c of the juvenile code (the section that Senate Bill 893 would amend). A child for whom a guardian was appointed under Section 19c would cease to be a ward of the State.

Over here we have Mr. Senate Bill 892 (a.k.a. Bill Hardiman)

The Adoption Code requires each parent to give consent to the adoption of a child, unless the rights of the parent have been terminated, the child has been released for the purpose of adoption to a child placing agency or the DHS, or other circumstances exist.

Consent must be given by the authorized representative of the DHS or of a child placing agency to whom the child has been released or permanently committed by an order of the family court.

Under the bill, consent could be given by the authorized representative of the DHS or his or her designee.

And last, but not least is Mr. Senate Bill 893 (a.k.a. Jim Barcia.)

Under Section 19c of the juvenile code, if a child remains in placement following the termination of parental rights to the child, the family court must conduct review hearings and permanency planning hearings. The court may appoint a guardian for the child, if it determines that doing so is in the child's best interest. The court may not appoint a guardian without the MCI superintendent's written consent. Under the bill, the court could not appoint a guardian without the written consent of the superintendent or his or her designee.

The code requires the MCI superintendent to consult with the child's lawyer guardian ad litem when considering whether to grant consent. Under the bill, that requirement also would apply to the superintendent's designee.

These are the three primary sponsors of a package of bills that would glorify legislating from the bench, but would crazy glue the lid on Medicaid fraud in Michigan's Child Welfare.

With amazing speed the Three Fraudketeers fast tracked these bills through the Senate in 56 days.  There were no announcements that the bills were even to be on the agenda of the Committee on Families and Human Services because the day they were introduced, they were referred.

In 28 days, the Committee summaries were completed by a fiscal analysts: David Fosdick who found the bills to have no fiscal impact on State or local government.  This finding alone should automatically set off the fraud alarm system because the entire purpose of these bills is to get the state to become eligible for increases in federal recovery funding.  Obviously, David Fosdick has not climbed very high on the intelligence food ladder because the Three Fraudketeers made him their prey to publish such blatant lies.

The purpose of the bills is to get the kids out of the custody of the state and into permanent placements.  The feds want this and so do we.  Since the state is very slowly, I mean at a squamulose, slithering, laggering pace, the state is..., hell, the only reform in child welfare is to make sure it does not change, so I guess fraud reform can be considered as legitimate in child welfare reform.

So, instead of providing services to reduce the rate by which children must enter care, or instead of designing legislation to regulate child welfare to end fraud, the Three Fraudketeers came up with a solution to convince the obtuse Senatorial leadership that it is impossible for the state to come into federal grant compliance, in no way, shape or form. 

Of course, one may ask: "Why have these Three Fraudketeers come together, now?"Let me tell you:

I filed the Quo Warranto.  In the State Court of Appeals, an action regarding a public official may be filed there, so I did.  I found that the State Court Rules were written with a significant procedural error when it was propped up in the 1980's; there is no ex-parte procedure.  If there is no ex-parte procedure, then it becomes impossible to execute an application in the nature of information for quo warranto.  I knew this but the Court did not, so I began my litmus test to see how far the Courts would go to cover up Medicaid fraud in child welfare and filed the action.

The Michigan Judiciary blew me away with the lengths it would go to cover up Medicaid fraud in child welfare.  Presiding Judge Michael J. Kelly, let's just say he knows me pretty well, decided, without finding of fact and conclusion of law, it would not be in his personal best interests to allow a gal her due process...again.

But, right before that  I was honored with a wonderful birthday present.   The Michigan Supreme Court Adopted amended Court Rules and a new Court Rule, all due to my lil' ol' quo warranto.  See, there is a Fourth Fraudketeer, and she goes by the name of Maura Corrigan.

The Fourth Fraudketeer

Maura D. Corrigan

Madame Fraudketeer was a party to the quo warranto, so, it also would not be in her best interest to remove Bill Johnson from the position of Superintendent of Michigan Children's Institute because she, with the greatest of frequency, advocates for Bill Johnson while cases are pending before her Court.

Basically, the Michigan Supreme Court came up with a federal revenue-maximization scheme to expedite adoptions of child wards of the state and to exterminate all evidence of Medicaid fraud in child welfare.  Superintendent Bill Johnson, according to the Court Rules, is no longer the legal guardian of over 7,000 children who decides to grant consent to adoption, he now "approves of the appointment of a guardian."

The state continues to refuse to contractual debarment, license revocation, fines, sanctions, refer violations of law to the Attorney General and continues to allow double-billing, false billing, phantom billing, kiddy kickbacks, etc.  Even though the Federal Funding Percentage for the state is 50%, when it could be 70%, it is still fiscally beneficial to state and local governments to continue its practice of fraud in child welfare. Accountability and transparency will remain strangers to the child welfare system as Bill Johnson and his newly crowned accomplice in fraud, Bruce Hoffman, will be cranking out adoptions, because once a child is adopted, there is no way to go back and find the evidence of fraud in the service files.

And that is how the Three Fraudketeers and Corrigan, got together to ram these bills down the throats of Michigan's unsagacious senate.