July 17, 2000
Children's home resolves conflict for now
___By David Winfrey
___Kentucky Western Recorder
___FRANKFORT, Ky.--Just when it looked as though Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children's contract with the state would expire, uprooting children and forcing massive layoffs, a call from the governor initiated a reprieve until both sides can reach an agreement.
___Earlier this year, state officials speculated that the contract with KBHC, the largest private provider of child care in Kentucky, might not be renewed because of KBHC's policy that bars homosexuals from employment. The agency's firing of a lesbian worker has landed it and two state cabinets that contract with KBHC in a federal lawsuit.
___But on June 23, KBHC President Bill Smithwick announced that a new contract agreement had been reached. The Baptist agency's hiring policy would remain unchanged, but the agency would agree to bear the full cost of defending its hiring practices. Furthermore, the contract allowed state case workers to stop sending children to KBHC for any reason.
___Four days after this announcement, an article in the Louisville Courier-Journal quoted Viola Miller, head of Kentucky's Cabinet for Families and Children, as saying it was "very possible" the agency might stop sending children to KBHC institutions and foster parents.
___So two days before the old contract was set to expire, Smithwick called a news conference to announce he would not sign a contract binding the children's home to all the costs of the upcoming legal battle with no assurances of further business with the state.
___"The state has asked us to indemnify them without any boundaries whatsoever, all costs, attorney's fees," Smithwick said. "On the other hand they're saying, 'We're not going to send them any more children.' Now why would you enter into a contract like that? It makes no sense."
___Rejecting the contract would have cost the agency more than half its projected budget and resulted in layoffs for at least half the agency's 465-member staff.
___Within a day, Gov. Paul Patton asked KBHC officials to reconsider their decision.
___Smithwick said new negotiations with the governor's office resulted in two significant development.
___First, "the contract language has changed to the point that it specifically allows social workers to make their decisions individually, with no overriding cabinet policy that would prohibit them sending children our way," he said.
___Second, the governor promised to write to all state case workers stating that it's up to the individual social workers as to which contract agencies they will send children.
___Smithwick reiterated that KBHC hasn't changed its hiring policy in order to reach an agreement.
___"We have not moved one bit on our family values, in our employment policies regarding homosexuals. We're right back where we started," he said.
___The turmoil of the last two months already has hurt the agency's financial condition, he said.
___And negotiations with the state did not resolve the lawsuit filed by the former lesbian employee. That case is being closely watched by child-care providers nationwide because of its potential impact on religious organizations.
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