Counties should account for children’s Social Security

TRANSPARENCY IS IMPORTANT for more than just keeping government accountable.

We tend to think about transparency as finding out what someone did wrong. Want to make sure this government department didn’t spend your tax dollars frivolously? Want to know where your legislator got his campaign donations? Want to see exactly how much money is going to specific programs? All of that is part of a government’s obligation to show its work.

But sometimes transparency isn’t a gotcha game.

It’s about being able to see your own information.

It’s about being able to prove your own history and your own resources.

Let’s take Social Security.

You are able to check up on what you have paid into Social Security on every paycheck. It’s right there on your withholdings. It’s restated on your W2 at the end of the year. You can also get regular statements about what you have paid in over the years and what you can expect to receive at retirement at a certain age and how much more it will be if you wait a little longer.

Children, however, don’t know what they can check on.

Children will regularly receive Social Security payments in specific circumstances. Kids can get disability payments if they have certain conditions.

They can also receive survivor benefits if they have lost one or both parents who paid into the system.

A Spotlight PA investigation recently revealed that while Pennsylvania counties have been taking in the Social Security payments for children in foster care, they aren’t disclosing those records.

“This money belongs to these kids,” said state Rep. Rick Krajewski, D-Philadelphia.

He is right — to a point. It is the children’s money, but it is also the state’s obligation.

Counties have a right to take the money for the use of the child, the same way that a surviving parent would cash the child’s check and use the money to pay for things like rent, food and clothes. Counties that take children into custody for other reasons sometimes take child support payments for those children from parents or guardians the same way.

Almost every county in the state does it — with Spotlight PA and Resolve Philly pointing to more than 1,300 kids and a total of $15.7 million over four years. That number could be higher. Records aren’t well maintained everywhere.

And that is the real problem.

It is easy to take advantage of children when you aren’t disclosing to them or anyone on their behalf exactly what is being taken. It isn’t the fault of a child that they enter foster care and it isn’t a child’s fault there may be no one designated to advocate for them financially.

Krajewski and state Rep. Sheryl Delozier, R-Cumberland County, have proposed a bipartisan bill to add guardrails to this process. A federal bill has also been put forth. It is ridiculous that such bills should be necessary, but they are.

Government should have no greater responsibility than the security of its children, but part of that security is financial — especially when this is the children’s own money.

But if government is going to take that money, it needs to be glaringly obvious about what it is doing, why and how much it has cost. We should not wait for a toddler to demand an accounting.