Data Shows Recession's Effect on Saline County Children
Leslie Duke - Tue 03:25 PM 01/03/2012
The report, released by Kansas Action for Children and the Salina Area United Way, measures county-by-county how kids are doing across 25 indicators of health, education and economic success.
Saline County children are feeling the full impact of the recession, according to the latest Kansas KIDS COUNT report.
The report, released by Kansas Action for Children and the Salina Area United Way, measures county-by-county how kids are doing across 25 indicators of health, education and economic success.
According to the data, 17.6 percent of Saline County children are living in poverty and more than 54.23 percent of public schoolchildren are participating in the free or reduced school lunch program.
“Children who live in poverty face hardships that can hinder future success,” said Shannon Cotsoradis, president and CEO of Kansas Action for Children. “This issue isn’t going away, and we need to protect programs and services that help to lift families out of poverty.”
New to this year’s report are statistics about Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program enrollment. 4,353 poor children in Saline County rely on Medicaid for health care coverage and 856 rely on CHIP, which provides health care coverage for children whose families are climbing out of poverty but are not yet able to afford private insurance.
“The number of children who rely on Medicaid and CHIP for health insurance has steadily increased over the past five years, as can be expected when childhood poverty is increasing,” said Cotsoradis. “We should continue on a course that allows more children to receive health insurance through these vital programs.”
The data showed progress for Saline County in several areas:
· 2010 Census shows positive growth over 2009 estimates.
· The percentage of children under age 18 remains fairly steady at 25%.
· Median Household Income reveals a slight net increase over the five year trend despite recent decreases in 2009.
Saline County has room for improvement in some areas:
· Similar to peer county and state trends child poverty rose to its highest point in 5 years in 2009.
· The percentage of children receiving free and reduced lunches (54%) increased slightly from 2010 to 2011; this indicator is higher than peer counties or state trends.
· 2010 Census shows a notable increase of Hispanic children population and the trend was greater than previously estimated. As a result the percentage of White, Non-Hispanic children in the population is lower than previously estimated.
In August, KAC and the Annie E. Casey Foundation released the national KIDS COUNT Data Book, which showed Kansas ranked 19th in a state-by-state study on the well-being of America’s children, its lowest ranking since 2004.
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troy
Tuesday 3 January 2012 15:45 Report this comment
So we get rid of the illegal aliens and the percentages will drop? Seems to me we could insure the poor more easily if there weren't so many illegals sucking up the benefits. I'm all for that. There would be more jobs available also for us citizens. Simple to fix: On inaguration day, our new president tells all illegals they have 30 days to get out! They can leave peacefully on a bus, or ride south in a cattle trailer.
t-bone
Tuesday 3 January 2012 16:00 Report this comment
you got my vote
Noob
Tuesday 3 January 2012 16:24 Report this comment
Blame Canada and the jews. Cartman told me so.
Iamgonnagetu
Tuesday 3 January 2012 20:00 Report this comment
Ok city and county commissioners, school board, sheriff, arts and friends of the river. You all want taxes raised, new jails, $250,000 art projects, $495,000 river studies and we have people and children in this much poverty. The chamber and the city manager can continue to speak lies to us via the media but this study shows that Salina is not the terrific place you try to make it out to be.
gueraloca
Tuesday 3 January 2012 20:58 Report this comment
at least we had a million dollars worth of christmas lights downtown this year! too bad most of the families living here couldnt afford christmas presents.
getumgranny
Wednesday 4 January 2012 07:11 Report this comment
I'm rather curious, I wonder how many of these children in the schools are here illegally? I wonder why they did not include this as part of their "study". At what point is our President/Senators/Congress going to say enough is enough?! The resources the illegal aliens (That are NOT all hispanic)are sucking out of our budgets is out of control. The LEGAL tax-paying citizens, and yes some are from other countries, are struggling to pay their own bills, yet we continue to turn a blind eye to the millions/billions of dollars that our Country/State spends to take care of the ones that are not here Legally!! But, it is not the childrens fault, they are simply going where their parents take them. No child should suffer from the acts of their parents. If our President wants to keep all the illegal aliens here, let him pay to support them!!
CC0709
Wednesday 4 January 2012 08:42 Report this comment
Getumgranny - the children in the school are not here illegally. Part of the broken system. They were born here - another part of the problem. More and more people are crossing the borders to have their children here - making them US citizens and eligible for free healthcare. Dodge City, Liberal, Garden City all of these areas have seen this and it's trickling this way. It's disgusting and to be frank the hispanic children or other races whose parents are here illegally - are not suffering. Their parents are working under the radar collecting cash, not paying taxes, driving SUV's with bright shiny rims on them, carrying iPhones and their kids are wearing designer clothes. So how is it that they get to be on the free lunch program? This system is so broken it sickens me - there has to be a way to fix it. Somebody needs to lasso this sucker in, it's WAY out of hand and draining our Country of money.
Richard
Wednesday 4 January 2012 09:10 Report this comment
I find the comment about illegal aliens interesting. Several different studies find that we make money from illegal aliens, one of them comes from Kansas State University. Even those who are born here and are citizens don't seem to create as big a hit as many think because their parents live in fear of being caught. The one thing that both Shannon Cotsoradis and her predecessor, Gary Brunk, will tell you over and over is that we can spend a little money now or we can spend a lot of money down the road. I am not from Salina, but I have always been amazed at just how easily so many people seem willing to simply throw these kids to the wind.
troy
Wednesday 4 January 2012 19:43 Report this comment
Richard, I have no desire to throw these kids to the wind, just throw them back across the border and I'll be happy. I don't wish to spend a little money on illegals today or a lot tomorrow.
troy
Wednesday 4 January 2012 19:45 Report this comment
Also, will not have any trust in any study from any university. Far too many left-wing, liberal, whale saving, tree hugging, pillow biting democrats poisoning our kids with their "60's" era view points.
Iamgonnagetu
Thursday 5 January 2012 13:19 Report this comment
The only way we can make money on illegals is to put a bounty on their heads.