(a) Under certain circumstances, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) will continue to make foster care payments to a provider on behalf of a child who is no longer in that provider's care, in order to reserve space for the child's anticipated return to that provider at a date in the near future. The maximum duration of continued payments to the provider during a child's absence is subject to the limitations set forth in this section.
(b) Payments to a provider for foster care during a child's absence will only be made if each of the following conditions are met:
  (1) DFPS plans to return the child to the provider at the end of the absence;
  (2) The provider agrees to reserve space for the child's return for as long as payments are made in the child's absence; and
  (3) DFPS is not making foster care payments on behalf of this same child to any other provider during the child's absence.
(c) If a child is temporarily absent from an emergency shelter or other provider contracted to provide emergency care, DFPS may continue to pay the provider for not more than five additional days during the child's absence.
(d) If a child is temporarily absent from non-emergency foster care, DFPS may continue to pay the foster care provider, if the payment is approved as follows:
  (1) The appropriate Child Protective Services (CPS) regional supervisor and program director must approve payment for an absence of not more than 14 days;
  (2) The regional program administrator must approve payment for an absence between 15 and 30 days;
  (3) The CPS regional director and the CPS Director of Placement must approve payment for an absence between 31 and 90 days; and
  (4) In unusual circumstances, payments may continue for an absence of longer than 90 days with prior written approval by the CPS assistant commissioner or designee.
(e) A foster care provider with whom a child was placed prior to beginning a trial independence period, as defined in Texas Family Code, §263.601, is not entitled to a continuation of foster care payments during the trial independence period.

Source Note: The provisions of this §700.323 adopted to be effective June 1, 2000, 25 TexReg 3292; amended to be effective September 1, 2007, 32 TexReg 5386; amended to be effective February 12, 2012, 37 TexReg 711