Reimbursement from employer eases adoption for Camas couple

The bank reimbursed $8,000 of adoption costs per child, which covered about one-third of the total adoption costs, the Lyons said. The couple had saved money for a couple of years before starting the international adoption process, and the way they see it, the reimbursement allowed them to adopt a second child.

Ranking employers

Not every employer offers adoption benefits, but it’s a growing way for companies to be more competitive in attracting and keeping talent. The Dave Thomas Foundation ranked Bank of America No. 53 among the top 100 adoption-friendly workplaces for 2016. The list includes other banks such as JPMorgan Chase (No. 21), which has more than a dozen branches in Clark County, Portland-headquartered Adidas America (61) and T-Mobile (14), which has five stores in Clark County.

Kroger, one of the larger local employers, is not on the list. But the company offers full-time hourly and salaried employees $2,000 reimbursement of adoption-related expenses and 12 weeks protected job leave. Some of the larger employers in Clark County do not offer financial assistance but boast protected job leave greater than the standard 12 unpaid weeks guaranteed through the Family Medical Leave Act.

Clark College offers unpaid parental leave between four and 12 months, depending on the employee’s classification.

“A lot of the families who are adopting, they’re doing bake sales and online auctions — some kind of fundraising. We were fortunate,” said Josh, 37.

He’s a relationship manager at Bank of America, where he’s worked for seven years. In addition to the financial reimbursement, the bank offered Josh 12 weeks of paid time off to be with his new family. The bank recently increased that allotted paid time off to 16 weeks.

It’s overwhelming to go from zero kids to two kids who don’t even know who you are and who’ve been removed from everything that they’ve known, Sara said. “It was kind of a godsend to have him home so we could tag team,” she said.

The boys also had a lot of catching up to do in terms of talking and learning English. They were born in a village where people spoke Tshiluba. Then, in the orphanage, people spoke French. In their transition home, various languages — including Swahili — were spoken. So, they had heard all these different languages but didn’t have a firm grasp of any of them.

The way Josh’s work-provided medical coverage works, when the boys arrived in the U.S., they were able to be seen by a doctor within a couple of days. Then-2-year-old Jameson had a bacterial infection in his intestine and weighed only 16 pounds. Sara had heard from other parents who adopted children internationally and had to fight with insurance companies to get them treated for pressing medical issues.

Jameson and Jaxson are now in kindergarten at Dorothy Fox Elementary School in Camas. They like Minecraft and Pokemon, and Pita Pit is their favorite lunch spot.

Sara and Josh were part of a pilot program that was matching families with children from the Congo. The couple looked at a list of children waiting to be adopted and saw Jaxson’s picture.

“I said, ‘that’s our son,’ ” Sara said. “I called the agency that day. … I wasn’t messing around.”

While going through the process, they saw Jameson’s picture and realized they had found their second son.

“I called that day on him, too, and the rest is history,” Sara said.

In-state options

In-state adoptions are typically less costly than private or international adoptions. Norah West, spokeswoman for the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, said costs are typically “kept to a bare minimum” but include attorney fees and physical exams that might be part of a home study. Families can also apply for reimbursement up to $1,500 per child to go toward those costs. The Adoption Support Program financially assists families adopting children with special needs.

“We’re certainly aware of assistance being offered by employers but don’t have any information, anecdotal or otherwise, to suggest that more potential adoptive parents are coming to us to learn about adopting a child through DSHS as a result of that employer assistance,” West said.

The number of annual adoptions has stayed about the same statewide. By the end of September, 894 children had been adopted statewide this year, 71 of them in Clark County. In 2015, there were 1,448 adoptions statewide including 60 in Clark County. There were 1,356 and 94 adoptions in 2014, according to data from the Administrative Office of the Courts. “We think it’s going to be a little lower this year,” West said.

Whether parents adopt nationally or internationally, they can take advantage of tax credits for qualified adoption expenses and exclusion from income for employer-provided adoption assistance. The maximum amount for 2016 is $13,460 per child, according to the Internal Revenue Service.