Governmental Affairs CommitteeACTION E-LIST INFORMATION
The Committee Members include:
Peter Bowers (communty volunteer), Chair, Dwight Stratton (parent), President,Shirley Dove (parent), Kim Olson (exec dir.), Shella DuMong (parent), Sandy Waterbury (parent), Jim
Stream (exec dir.), Barbara Maizie (exec dir.), Connie Lapin (parent), Pat Napoliello (parent), and Tony Anderson, Staff.
Since February, 2009 when major state budget reductions began, The Arc of California has advocated for solutions that:
keep cuts as far from consumers and families as possible,
share cuts equitably across all 4 parts of the developmental disabilities system,
maximize California’s share of federal dollars to maintain direct services.
On June 15, 2009, in order to achieve $334 million in budget reductions, Governor Schwarzenegger’s Department of Developmental Services (DDS) recommended, and the 10 members of the Legislature’s Budget Conference Committee accepted, a proposal to take more than $211 million in cuts from direct community services for consumers and families. This results in 83% of all cuts coming from community services. The remainder of the $334 million was achieved by generating additional federal dollars ($80 million), cuts to regional center operations ($17 million) and cuts at State Developmental Centers ($26 million). These cuts won’t become law until the full Legislature adopts them.
Your grassroots advocacy, lobbying by The Arc and our allied groups, and pressure from several legislators was successful in convincing the Schwarzenegger Administration to keep some of the cuts away from direct services and making other major changes to reduce the cuts’ impact. But the Arc of California believes that too high a portion of the cuts were made in ways that directly impact consumers, families and the community service system. To take dollars from an already severely underfunded community system is devastating.
But there is something that concerns us even more.
In order to implement these cuts, changes in the wording of current law are necessary. The new wording makes significant changes to the Lanterman Act. The final wording of these changes has not yet been released by the Administration, and work continues to finalize it. It appears so far that some of the changes are minor, but many of them are major policy changes that will affect every person with a developmental disability in California.
Some of the changes will be familiar to you. They are policy changes we have successfully stopped over and over again in recent years. They include such things as categorical service reductions and statewide purchase-of-service standards that are in conflict with the founding principles of the Lanterman Act. In previous years when the Administration has made these proposals, the community has loudly objected and the Legislature has rejected them. This year our voices are being lost in the noise of the greater budget crisis in Sacramento. We must continue to object! Here are some specific examples of what the new language does:
Restrict eligibility for Early Intervention Services. Fewer babies between 24 and 36 months of age will qualify for regional center services. In addition, babies of any age who are at high risk for developmental disabilities due to biomedical risk factors will no longer be eligible for early intervention services. DDS estimates that about 17,000 babies at high risk for developmental disabilities will be denied eligibility for this program. Even eligible babies will be denied many services that are currently available and approximately $30 million per year will be saved.* Support for the ineligible children will be reduced significantly and a separate program referred to as the “Prevention” program will be established to provide case management and limited supports outside of the Lanterman Act in a capped program.
Limit the services that will be provided to children who need Early Intervention and their families. The individual family service plan will no longer include all the services a baby needs. It will only include the services that are required to be provided under the federal Early Start law. (Durable medical equipment is an exception.) DDS estimates that $6 million - $8 million per year will be saved by discontinuing child care, diapers, dentistry, interpreters, translators, genetic counseling, music therapy, social recreations programs, housing, medical services unrelated to the disability, hospitalization, medical devices, immunizations, well baby care, family & marital counseling, and substance abuse counseling.
The State, not the IPP, determines how much respite a family can receive. A uniform statewide cap is being placed on all respite purchases at all regional centers. A maximum of 21 days of out-of-home respite per year and 90 hours of in-home respite per quarter will be established. The new law says that regional centers may grant an individual exemption. However, until now the individual planning team, not the Legislature or the regional center, has had the legal right to determine how much respite a family needs. DDS estimates that approximately $6 - $7 million per year will be saved.
All Day, Work and Infant Development programs will be forced to close for 14 days per year. Most programs already close for 10 holidays each year. Now programs will not be paid during the week between Christmas and New Year’s. There will also be no transportation services on these additional days. The result is up to 10 consecutive days without program for tens of thousands of children and adults every year. A further result is 4 additional unpaid days (an additional 1.6% rate cut) for programs that are already badly underfunded. DDS estimates that approximately $22 million per year will be saved.
Some services are almost totally eliminated. You will be forced to prove extraordinary need to be considered for most social/recreational activities, camping and associated travel expenses, educational services for minor children and non-medical therapies including specialized recreation, art, dance and music. Purchase of these services is suspended until implementation of a new, program called "Individual Choice Budget" which is designed to offer increased flexibility but requires a fixed-budget that is set at 10% less than the current spending level for the individual. The DDS estimates that $34 - $37 million per year will be saved.
Your right to choose the service provider you want is curtailed. Regional centers will have more control over what services you receive and who provides them. Regional Centers, will also have an increased say in determining what transportation is provided for each individual. DDS estimates that $32 - $34 million per year will be saved plus an additional $18 - $40 million will be saved from the changes to transportation.
In addition to the changes above, DDS is recommending 32 more law changes intended to reduce spending and control future costs. All of these changes have significant public policy implications, but none of them has been seen by the public. The people who will be affected by these changes are not aware of what DDS has proposed and have not had an opportunity to comment. Hopefully some of the changes will have a positive or neutral effect. Others, like the ones listed above, will clearly do great harm.
Because of the pressure to solve California’s immediate budget crisis, the Legislature and the Governor may accept these DDS recommendations. We must continue to express our objection now! They must know that we are watching!
What we do now is the key to what happens in the future. Over the last few months, the Administration and the Legislature heard from and listened to thousands of consumers and families. They listened, they sympathized, but their actions did something else. More cuts will surely be proposed in the future. We will demand that they do more than just listen. We will demand that they act on what they hear. - Peter Bowers, Chair
Even more details...Marty Omoto, CA Disability Community www.cdcan.us
Action Needed Now - June 30, 2009
The full Legislature hasn't acted on the cuts yet. Some of the cuts may be restored if the community response is strong. And there's a real risk of more cuts if the community response isn't strong enough. Here's who to call.
Tell them what the cuts will mean to you and those you love - and that the community is and always was against the cuts, no matter what they've been told. Tell them we want our alternatives to bring in more federal funds instead! Speak from the heart.
1. Call or write your local state senator and Assembly representative.
If you don't know who your legislators are, you can find out in the red, white and blue "Write Your Legislators" box at www.ArcCalifornia.org. When you call, give them your name and address so they know you live in the district they represent. Calls have more impact than emails. Please fax, don't mail any letters - screening can delay them up to 3 weeks.
2. Call Governor Schwarzenegger and all 10 members of the Budget Conference Committee, who are responsible for the cuts.
Please phone all 11 below if you're able. All of their phone numbers are in the 916 area code. The email addresses and fax numbers are for people who can't call.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, 445-2841, 558-3160 (fax), email using the web form at www.ArcCalifornia.org, the "Write Your Legislators" box.
3. Join The Arc's Action E-List to stay informed and get more detailed Action Alerts so you can act quickly when it's needed most.
Go to www.ArcCalifornia.org. Go to the red, white and blue "Write Your Legislators" box. Enter your ZIP code. Click. Scroll down to "Action E-List." Click again. And follow the instructions.
Governor Welcomed by Protesters in Fresno
http://www.fresnobee.com/updates/story/1481728.html. It didn’t take long for the developmental disability community to start showing up to greet Governor Schwarzenegger after the Legislature’s budget conference committee approved his devastating destructive cuts. Let’s keep showing where he appears – and where any of the 10 members of the conference committee appear. For their names (and phone numbers!) click here., see the Action Alert below.
SUBJECT:Alternatives to Service Cuts for People with Developmental Disabilities and Their Families Dear Legislator:
We and other stakeholder groups are appealing for your support for our proposals to save more than $100 million in General Fund costs in the Department of Developmental Services (DDS) budget – our groups’ alternative to the most harmful cuts in actual services for people with developmental disabilities and their families that DDS has proposed.
DDS’s proposed service cuts would come on top of years of cuts in the actual services for people with mental retardation, autism, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and other developmental disabilities. While some of the cuts that DDS proposes wouldn’t hurt these vulnerable Californians if implemented very carefully, some could do major harm. Here are two of the worst:
Closing day programs for an additional four days between Christmas and New Year’s Day. People don’t get a vacation from their disabilities. Forcing people with developmental disabilities to stay home for more than a week would put many of them under stress, leading to mental and physical health problems. It would force parents to stay home from work. In employment programs, it could result in the programs losing contracts and forcing them to cut jobs for their clients. It could force some programs to close.
Restricting admission to Early Start programs. This could deprive infants and toddlers of early-intervention services that prevent development of more severe disabilities later.
The stakeholders groups have developed alternative plans to save as much as – or more than - DDS’s proposals. Our groups’ proposed General Fund savings would be realized in 2009-10. We and others also are working on proposals to save more in future years. Our proposals are based on these principles, which we also urge you to support:
Cuts must be as far from the lives of people with disabilities as possible.
The Individual Program Plan (IPP/IFSP) is central to the Lanterman Act and must be preserved.
All people, regardless of the severity of their disabilities, are entitled to live in their communities.
State-owned developmental centers and community services must be analyzed as a unified system.
All cuts must include health and safety exceptions
Nothing should delay early intervention or crisis services.
Cuts should not eliminate service options.
Any cuts that harm people with developmental disabilities should be temporary.
Our groups’ proposals are detailed and specific. They include options such as: aggressive pursuit of existing federal funds to reimburse transportation costs; more effective use of public transportation; developmental center budget reductions to match their case load reductions; and using short-term federal stimulus funds instead of the General Fund to pay for capital expenditures.
We are available to meet with you and your staff to discuss the specifics in detail.
You may hear that spending on people with developmental disabilities is “out of control.” And in fact, this may be true in the state-run developmental centers. But in fact, there have been years of cuts to the actual community-based services. The increasing total costs to the DDS budget are driven by two main factors, according to DDS’s own study:
The explosive growth in autism spectrum disorder. It is critical that California remain responsive to the acute needs of people with autism and their families, and this can be expensive.
Deinstitutionalization, which is crucial to the well-being of people currently confined in the state-run developmental centers. Deinstitutionalization cuts overall state costs. But it increases the community-based service system’s costs - because it increases the case load of people in living in the community, and because people coming out of developmental centers often have greater support needs than others.
In addition to the proposed DDS budget cuts, statewide cuts in IHSS workers’ pay, SSI/SSP and CalWORKS grants, and MediCal and other safety-net health care services will take effect on July 1 – unless the Legislature and Governor reverse them. All these affect people with developmental disabilities as well as other vulnerable Californiansand can cause irreparable harm. The Arc and other groups also are asking the Legislature to use federal stimulus funds to reverse these cuts. Please work with us to reduce General Fund costs in ways that do the least damage to people with developmental disabilities.
Projects, Products,
and Alerts from the GA Committee...
May 7, 2009
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