Tina Spears, RI Senate Fiscal Aide, Named State's Consent Decree Coordinator
/By Gina Macris
Tina Spears photo courtesy state of RI
Tina Spears, a policy analyst in the fiscal office of the Rhode Island Senate, has been named the state’s Consent Decree Coordinator. The coordinator is charged with ensuring cooperation among three departments of state government responsible for reinventing daytime services for teenagers and adults with developmental disabilities to comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA).
Eric Beane, Secretary of Health and Human Services, announced Spears’ appointment Jan. 12, saying in a statement that she is “well-poised to lead this work, given her longstanding advocacy for children and individuals with disabilities.”
Spears, who has parented a child with a disability, “brings a strong personal commitment to the work” in addition to professional expertise in the state budget and the federal-state Medicaid program which funds developmental disability services, Beane said.
“Her connection to the community and passion for ensuring people have the opportunity to live their life to its fullest potential are welcome additions to the work our team does every day to improve developmental disabilities services in Rhode Island,” Beane said.
Prior to her Senate job, she was government relations director of the Rhode Island Parent Information Network for eight years.
Spears, the fourth consent decree coordinator in three years, succeeds Dianne Curran, who served just seven months before stepping down in September. Curran was preceded by Mary Madden, who stayed in the job a year, from 2016 until 2017, and by Andrew McQuaide, the first coordinator.
In the last several months. Brian Gosselin, Chief Strategic Officer for the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, has been filling in as consent decree coordinator.
The state created the coordinator’s position at the insistence of a federal court monitor overseeing implementation of a 2014 consent decree, which maps out what the state must do to correct the overreliance on sheltered workshops and segreated programs that violated the integration mandate of the ADA. The consent decree draws its authority from the Olmstead decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, which clarified the requirement for integrated services for individuals with disabilities.
