RI House Gives Extra Bump To Pay Of Front Line DD Workers As Budget Deliberations Near End

By Gina Macris

The Rhode Island House has added a total of $9.6 million in federal-state Medicaid funding to boost the pay of direct care workers for adults with developmental disabilities in the state budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

The increase, awaiting approval by the Senate, represents the largest single-year investment in wages since drastic cuts were made in 2011. In 2016, the legislature earmarked $5 million for a rate hike, and the next year it added $6.1 million.

But the rates for Rhode Island’s direct care workers still lag behind those of neighboring Connecticut and Massachusetts.

This year’s wage hike is was part of an overall $296.9 million allocation for developmental disabilities, which includes $13 million in federal Medicaid reimbursement to create a third-party case management initiative called a Health Home.

In an unusual Saturday session June 22, the House also addressed a shortfall in the current developmental disabilities budget, adding $2.9 million in supplemental funding.

Developmental disability services encompass both the private system serving about 4,000 clients and a state-operated network of group homes for about 125 individuals, accounting for more than half the spending in the Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals (BHDDH). The House-authorized spending cap for BHDDH in the next budget is $463.2 million.

A spokesman for House Speaker Nicholas A. Mattiello explained a floor amendment that raised the total earmarked for a wage increase in Governor Gina Raimondo’s budget from $6.4 million to $9.6 million.

Larry Berman said the governor’s $6.4 million, including $3 million in state funding and $3.4 million in federal reimbursements, will mean a 41-cent raise to the hourly rate for direct support workers on July 1. The hourly rate, which he put at an average of $12.27, would rise to $12.68, Berman said.

The additional $3.2 million in the floor amendment, including $1.5 in state revenue, will be applied Oct. 1, triggering an additional wage hike of 41 cents an hour, for a total hourly rate of $13.09 during the last nine months of the fiscal year, Berman said.

In the past, increases for direct care workers have meant that supervisors and other support personnel have also received raises. But Berman confirmed that this year, the allocation earmarked for pay bumps apply only to front-line caregivers. In all, about 4,000 work in the private sector in the field of developmental disability services.

Berman’s figures refer to the basic hourly wage rate in the BHDDH reimbursement model for private providers, but that doesn’t mean each direct care worker will get the increase he cited.

Many variables exist in the way each of the providers figures out how much to pay workers and how much to set aside for benefits and other employer-related expenses. All that means that the amount of the actual wage hikes will vary.

In the past, the state and the private providers have differed on how far a rate hike will go.

In a statement, Mattiello took credit for redirecting additional funds to direct care workers.

“When about $1 million was identified as available in the budget, I suggested it go to those workers who are providing outstanding care to the developmentally disabled community. They deserve this rate increase.”

The Community Provider Network of Rhode Island, (CPNRI) a trade association of about two dozen providers, posted its thanks on Facebook:

“CPNRI is pleased to see the commitment of the Speaker, Senate President and Governor and all the Representatives and Senators who have supported increased wages for DD workers in Rhode Island in the 2020 budget. This investment not only will raise wages for this invaluable workforce, it supports individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities to lead meaningful lives in our communities. Thank you to all who have prioritized this workforce.”

The wage increase is assured passage in the Senate, where developmental disability services have the support of the leadership, including Senate President Dominick J. Ruggerio, William J. Conley, Jr., Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee; and Sen. LouisA. DiPalma, first vice-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

The extra push in funding occurred just as Mattiello sought to tamp down a controversy involving a Cranston chiropractor, who was to receive a $1 million authorization to bill the state for services for an unproven neurological treatment for traumatic head injury and other disorders that failed to qualify for federal Medicaid reimbursement..

On June 20, Mattiello announced he would pull the $1 million in funding from Victor Pedro, because the issue had become too controversial and he wanted to avoid a lengthy floor battle, even though he still supported the chiropractor.

Berman said most of the last-minute $1.5 million-increase in worker wages came from the allocation that Mattiello pulled from the chiropractor, along with funds from various other accounts.

Spending for already-established developmental disability programs and services from all revenue sources in the next fiscal year would be capped at $284 million – about $12.3 million more than originally approved for the current fiscal year. Most of that figure comes from the federal-state Medicaid program.

Meanwhile, the House approved a revised developmental disabilities budget of slightly over $274.6 million for the current fiscal year, which is $2.9 million more than the $271.7 million the General Assembly enacted a year ago.

The revised figure includes about $1.7 million in state revenue that represents an adjustment for an audit finding that the state was incorrectly leveraging federal Medicaid money to pay for fire code upgrades in group homes and other facilities serving adults with developmental disabilities, Berman said. Capital projects are now all assigned to the Department of Administration, he said.

Without supplemental funding and savings in other BHDDH accounts, the cost of services in the privately-run developmental disability system would have exceeded the amount the General Assembly originally allocated by about $3.8 million in General revenue.

A third-quarter spending report prepared by BHDDH said that the total state share of Medicaid-funded direct services in the private system is projected at about $111.4 million by June 30. The enacted budget for the current fiscal year allows $107.6 million in that category, but the supplemental funding recommended by the Governor and approved by the House reduces the projected shortfall in state funds to about $152,000, when combined with savings in other accounts.

In the third-quarter spending report for the current fiscal year, BHDDH officials project about a 1.5 percent increase in overall caseload growth and a $1.5 million increase in supplemental funding to clients who successfully appeal the individual amounts allocated for their services.

Counting all the Governor’s proposed supplemental funding for BHDDH in all three divisions, as well as savings in some budget line items, the department projected a year-end surplus of about $438,000 as of March 31.

RI House Finance Committee Recommends Restoring DD Services To Current Levels

By Gina Macris

RI HOUSE SPEAKER Nicholas A. Mattiello  

In a midnight session June 8, the Rhode Island House Finance Committee added nearly $18 million to Governor Gina Raimondo’s original budget proposal for developmental disabilities in the fiscal year beginning July 1.

Both the House and Senate leadership and the governor herself supported increased funding for developmental disabilities after better-than-expected revenue projections were announced May 10.

The additional funding, all Medicaid money, includes about $8.8 million in state revenue and the remainder from federal funds, according to documents prepared by the House fiscal staff. The Finance Committee’s budget raised Raimondo’s bottom line for developmental disabilities from $250.8 million to $271.4 million. The state’s share would be $126.3 million.

Raimondo’s original budget would not have allowed the state to continue to implement a 2014 federal consent decree designed to correct violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act, according to an independent court monitor, who had been prepared to make recommendations to the judge in the case to ensure adequate funding.

The overall $9.55 billion statewide package passed the House Finance Committee, mostly along party lines without debate, on a vote of 15-3. Opposed were Republicans Patricia Morgan, a gubernatorial candidate representing West Warwick, Warwick, and Coventry,  Antonio Giarrusso, representing East Greenwich and West Greenwich, and Robert Quattrocchi, representing Scituate and Cranston.

The measure is slated to go before the full house June 15, and Chairman Marvin Abney-D-Newport, said there would be plenty of debate on the House floor.

 As it now stands, the budget maintains the level of developmental disability services at current reimbursement rates to private providers. The Finance Committee did not reverse a $3 million cut to the state-run group home system imposed by the Governor, and it does not improve wages for direct care workers, as has been the practice in the last three budgets.

Direct care workers in developmental disability services make significantly less than their counterparts in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Providers say they struggle to recruit, train and keep qualified employees, who often go to neighboring states or leave the field entirely. 

In a briefing with reporters before the Finance Committee convened, House Speaker Nicholas A. Mattiello said the budget did not go further in addressing needs of the Division of Developmental Disabilities because of the necessity to restore funding in many human service areas.

“We were thinking of all segments of society and balanced it as well as we can,” he said. “We took care of our economy, and we took care of our citizens.”

The Finance Committee added $15.7 million payments for hospitals and another $17.2 million to the Department of Children, Youth and Families for services for children and teenagers in state care. Some of the added DCYF funding would provide for older teens who choose to receive services until age 21 – an option that has been unavailable in recent years.

The House Finance Committee also granted a 10 percent rate hike to in-home caregivers of the elderly and disabled. Most of the individuals served by those workers do not have developmental disabilities, according to Sharon Reynolds Ferland, the House Fiscal Advisor. But Mattiello said there are significant savings to the state in keeping those individuals out of nursing homes.

The revised budget also reversed Raimondo’s plan to require Medicaid patients to shoulder co-pays for health care, although the original proposal was not designed to affect individuals with disabilities.

Just as the Finance Committee increased Medicaid reimbursement rates to hospitals to make them competitive with Massachusetts and Connecticut, Mattiello said, he believes wages for direct care workers probably should be raised to keep them in Rhode Island.

“Yes, I do believe we have to look at those rates,” he said in response to a question about the wages. He said direct care wages “should probably be increased but there’s so much resources, and when you run out, you run out.”

Mattiello held out the hope that direct care worker wages in developmental disabilities would be revisited next year.

He said he wants to continue to increase resources for developmental disabilities, “but that increase is incremental and slower than we would like.”

“We’re continuing to work on improving our economy so we can continue to work on the needs of society and balance those needs,” Mattiello said.

While the House leadership usually drives the budget, the Senate will weigh in after the package clears the lower chamber.

Court Monitor Says Court Order Not Needed To Ensure RI DD Funding; State Budget To Move Forward Thursday In House Finance Committee

By Gina Macris

An independent court monitor has advised a federal judge that a court order isn’t necessary to ensure adequate funding and staffing for Rhode Island’s developmental disability services.

In a June 1 report to Judge John J. McConnell, Jr. of U.S. District Court, the monitor, Charles Moseley, cited recent assurances from Governor Gina Raimondo that revisions will be made to the state budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 to enable the state Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals (BHDDH) to continue implementing a 2014 consent decree correcting violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA.)  

After a positive report from the semi-annual Revenue Estimating Conference May 10, House Speaker Nicholas A. Mattiello and Senate President Dominick J. Ruggerio took the lead in promising to restore $18.4 million in reimbursements to private service providers that Raimondo had originally eliminated from her budget proposal for the fiscal year beginning July 1.  Raimondo's original proposal had been unacceptable to Moseley, who had told McConnell in April that the cut would leave BHDDH unable to maintain consent decree reforms.  

The May  Revenue Estimating Conference concluded the state would take in a total of $135 million more than had been previously projected to close out the existing budget and to fund the next one, but Mattiello warned that extra cash should not be viewed as a panacea, because of multiple demands on the state’s resources.

Those obligations could include an estimated $24 million in federal and state Medicaid funds the state has not budgeted for retroactive payments to nursing homes. Whether the state must make those payments is wrapped up in a lawsuit brought by nursing home operators in state court over reductions in reimbursements imposed by the Raimondo administration.

The nursing homes prevailed in the litigation and the state failed to file a timely appeal, with the administration blaming a lawyer at the Executive Office of Health and Human Services who simply missed a May 23 filing deadline. The state is now trying to convince the judge in the case to accept an appeal anyway.  

Payments to nursing homes would eat up about $12 million in state revenue, or 8 percent of the $135 million in extra state revenue lawmakers had been planning to use to fill holes in the budget – including reimbursements to private providers of developmental disability services. (The remainder of the retroactive payments would come from the federal government's share of the Medicaid program.) 

The revised budget is scheduled to go before the House Finance Committee the evening of Thursday, June 7.

Besides an enhanced bottom line on funding, the court monitor will be looking for the addition of three BHDDH employees to staff a quality improvement unit which is deemed critical to ensuring that current and future reforms adhere to consent decree standards.

It is not immediately clear how those three added staffers would be used. As late as the first week of May, the monitor and BHDDH officials had been at odds about both the number of officials needed in the quality improvement unit and their respective roles.   

The consent decree gets its authority from the 1999 Olmstead decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that Title II of the ADA requires services for disabled individuals to be offered in the least restrictive environment that is therapeutically appropriate. That environment is presumed to be the community.

In 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice cited Rhode Island’s overreliance on sheltered workshops and adult day care programs as violations of  Title II of the ADA. In the consent decree, the state agreed to ten years of federal oversight while it transforms the segregated system of daytime services to an integrated one based in the community.

This article has been corrected to show that, depending on a judge's final ruling, half of an unbudgeted $24 million in retroactive payments to Rhode Island nursing home operators would come from state revenue.

DiPalma: RI DD Services Need More Than $18 Million To Continue Consent Decree Reforms

By Gina Macris

One of the Rhode Island Senate’s chief advocates for adults with developmental disabilities applauded the House and Senate consensus on restoring $18.4 million to reimbursements for private service providers but said that amount is not enough to enable the state to continue transforming its programs to comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Reacting to the latest positive revenue estimates, Sen. Louis DiPalma, D-Middletown, said May 11 that reversing a cut planned by Governor Gina Raimondo for the fiscal year beginning July 1 would be a “phenomenal step forward.” 

But DiPalma, who has closely followed developmental disability issues, said he hopes the General Assembly can find additional funds so that the state can continue to invest in the goals of a 2014 civil rights federal consent decree and also, for a third consecutive year,  raise wages for direct care workers who provide services to adults with developmental disabilities. 

Restoring $18.4 million to private providers, and an additional $3 million to a state-run network of group homes, would bring the developmental disabilities budget to about $272.2 million. That reflects the pace of spending for the current fiscal year.

DiPalma said developmental disabilities will need about $275 million to $280 million in federal and state Medicaid funding during the next fiscal year to continue the decade-long transformation of services from a segregated to an integrated model, as mandated by 2014 consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice. 

DiPalma’s remarks came the day after the state Revenue Estimating Conference concluded May 10 that revenues for the next 14 months are expected to run a total of nearly $135 million ahead of estimates made in November.  That total includes an additional $75.5 million for the fiscal year ending June 30 and another $59.4 million in Fiscal 2019, which begins July 1.

The $18.4 million gap in reimbursements to private providers for Fiscal 2019 refers tMo both federal and state Medicaid funds, with the federal government providing roughly 52 cents on the dollar.  That means the state would have to put up about $9 million to close the $18.4 million hole.

House Speaker Nicholas A. Mattiello and the President of the Senate, Dominick J. Ruggerio, issued separate statements saying they were pleased that revenues exceeded prior estimates. In recent days, they also have listed developmental disabilities as one of the priorities that must be addressed, although neither viewed the extra cash as a panacea, because of multiple unmet demands on the state budget. 

Mattiello’s statement said, “This offers some more options for us as we consider some very tough choices in our budget deliberations. I am committed to making sure we pass a responsible budget that addresses the critical needs of our citizens and continues to move the state forward.”

In addition, on May 11, he said the House “always” planned to address the $18.4 million gap between current spending for developmental disabilities and the governor’s proposal for the budget cycle beginning July 1.

Ruggerio, the Senate president, said, “As we work together to craft a responsible budget, it is important to consider that a significant portion of this increase is one-time revenue that may not continue in future years, and that there are significant gaps in the current budget proposal that need to be filled. However, the additional revenue does provide some flexibility to address Senate priorities such as funding for developmental disabilities care within the BHDDH budget and funding for DCYF.” Ruggerio referred to the Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals, and to the Department of Children, Youth and Families.

While adequate funding is the most immediate issue, there are other regulatory matters that concern a federal court monitor and the BHDDH administration. The Senate has signaled it is open to change, both in the short term and the long run.

In a brief telephone interview May 11, Mattiello said he, too, is open to considering changes, although he did not get  into specifics.

“I know the needs are significant,” he said. “I’ve got constituents in the community that have developmentally challenged family members. These folks need help, and I’m very, very available to that.”

“I’m open to study and to doing things better,” Mattiello said. “The department (BHDDH) and the administration certainly can do things better.”

“These are complex issues,” Mattiello said.

The Senate has passed a resolution authorizing a 19-member commission to study the fee-for-service reimbursement structure, with a report due March 1, 2019.

In addition, the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services is to vote May 15 on a bill to change the timing of individual funding authorizations for developmental disability services from quarterly to an annual basis.

An independent federal court monitor in the consent decree case, administrators at BHDDH, and private service providers all have found the quarterly authorizations problematic for a variety of reasons.

Providers have said the quarterly authorization system does not allow them to do any long-range budgeting. Anecdotal accounts of families unable to find services indicate a tendency in recent years for providers to avoid taking on clients with complex and costly needs for fear of financial risk that they may not be to cover.

Meanwhile, the Director of Developmental Disabilities testified at a recent Senate Finance Committee meeting that quarterly authorizations are administratively burdensome. The 3700 individual authorizations in the division’s caseload must be entered manually in the state reimbursement system four times a year, said the director, Kerri Zanchi. 

At the same time, DiPalma, the first vice chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, noticed that in some years there are significant dips in the caseload numbers in April and October – as many as 145 or 150.  This timing coincides with the governor’s budget preparation process in the fall and the legislature’s refinement of the final figures in the spring.  In general, each client represents an average of $60,000 in federal-state Medicaid funding. 

One reason for that variability might be data entry errors, according to Donna Martin, executive director of the Community Provider Network of Rhode Island, a trade association of service providers.

The bill requiring annual authorizations says they are necessary to allow adults with developmental disabilities to plan their services in a “flexible manner consistent with their stated goals and plan of care,” in accordance with the principles of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Home and Community Based Services Final Rule. Among other things, the Final Rule requires service plans to be based on an individual’s needs and preferences.

The bill would not preclude the state from changing reimbursement rates to providers in the middle of a fiscal year, but they and their clients would have to receive 45 days’ notice.

RI Speaker: General Assembly Likely To Reverse $18 M Cut In DD Services Proposed By Governor

By Gina Macris 

It is likely the General Assembly will restore about $18 million in proposed cuts to private providers of developmental disability services in the budget cycle that begins July 1,” Rhode Island House Speaker Nicholas A. Mattiello said May 10.

In a video interview published by GoLocal Prov, Mattiello said:

“We have about $18 million in proposed cuts to the developmentally disabled community. I don’t want to speak for everybody, but I’m certainly going to strongly advocate for giving the money back and restoring it. I don’t think that’s an appropriate place to go for your cuts. And we were always planning on restoring those funds. I think that thinking is pretty universal.”

Mattiello was interviewed at the conclusion of the May Revenue Estimating Conference, which indicated revenues are running about $130 million to $135 million ahead of estimates for the current fiscal year and the next one, according to slightly differing preliminary news reports.  An official statement was not immediately available.

A spokesman for Mattiello added that the “budget will be finalized in the coming weeks, and there are no firm numbers yet, but the Speaker is committed to addressing the developmental disabilities issue in the budget.”

The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. William J. Conley,Jr., D-East Providence and Pawtucket, has taken a firm stand against the $18 million reduction in reimbursements to private providers proposed by Governor Gina Raimondo in January.

During a Senate Finance Committee hearing May 3, Conley framed the budgetary issue in terms of the civil rights of adults with developmental disabilities to have the assistance they need to enjoy services in their communities as spelled out in the Olmstead decision of the U.S. Supreme Court.

And that day for the first time, Rebecca Boss, director of the Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals(BHDDH), acknowledged that governor’s recommended budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 would not allow the state to continue its compliance efforts with a 2014 federal consent decree based on the Olmstead decision.

For the fiscal year beginning July 1, Raimondo has proposed $250.8 million for developmental disabilities. That figure is $6.1 million less than the bottom line enacted by the General Assembly for the current fiscal year and a total of $21.4 million less than current spending levels.  Raimondo’s budget proposal would raise the current spending limit from $256.9 million to $272.2 million for the fiscal year ending June 30 to cover a cost overrun, treating it as a one-time event.  

In the BHDDH budget request to the governor last fall, Boss asked for a total of $278.8 million for developmental disabilities beginning July 1.

U.S. District Court Judge John J. McConnell, Jr., who presides over implementation of the consent decree, has made it clear over the last six months that he has a keen interest in the funding issue.

At the most court recent hearing April 10, an independent court monitor said he would draft recommendations for a proposed court order to ensure compliance with the consent decree

The monitor, Charles Moseley, was to first consult with the state and the U.S. Department of Justice to see if they could all reach consensus on the recommendations. Moseley’s report to the judge has not yet appeared in the court file.

But McConnell has received a letter from a parent asking him to “stop the governor’s plan to cut $18 million from I/DD (intellectual and developmental disabilities) services.”

Chris Torgovec has a son with autism who is living in a group home and has started to work a few hours a week “so he is doing well there, but I’m afraid of what could happen if these services would go away.

“It would not be a good thing for anyone. I’m sure there are other places to make cuts but not to people that actually need help, “ Torgovec said.

RI Budget Goes Into Limbo Over Car Tax Contingency Amendment Inserted By Senate

By Gina Macris

The $9.2 million Rhode Island budget, which appeared poised for final passage by the Senate on June 30, now hangs in limbo on the first day of the new fiscal year, July 1, a casualty of a dispute between the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate over the Speaker’s signature car tax relief plan.

The situation means that by law, the levels of spending approved by the General Assembly a year ago remain in effect until the General Assembly resolves the Fiscal Year 2018 budget – and no one knows when that might be.

For Rhode Islanders who are elderly or have disabilities, the one exception to the spending freeze is separate legislation, on its way to the governor, which restores their free bus passes on the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority, a $5 million item.

But increases to direct care workers in both developmental disabilities and home health care fields remain up in the air. So do millions of dollars in reimbursements to private developmental disability service agencies, some of them for expenses already incurred in the fiscal year that ended June 30.

The dispute between House Speaker Nicholas A. Mattiello and Senate President Dominick Ruggerio, centers on a Senate amendment which would freeze the level of Mattiello’s car tax relief if, at any time during the six-year phase-out, the state has to dip into its rainy day fund.

During the floor discussion, senators said the state needed a safety net in the event the state cannot ultimately afford the overall $221 million cost of the phase-out, especially in light of uncertainty in Washington over billions of dollars in proposed cuts to Medicaid nationwide. Those drastic reductions would deal Rhode Island a severe blow in many human service programs, including those supporting adults and children with developmental disabilities.

The Senate passed the amendment, with the rest of the budget that had been approved by the House, with just hours remaining in the old fiscal year.

But by that time, Mattiello had adjourned the House and sent the members home. He gave no indication when he might call the House back into session.

In a statement, he said “Despite the House, the Senate and the Governor reaching agreement on a responsible and balanced state budget, I learned today that the Senate was likely to amend the budget on this, the last legislative day. This would have resulted in a long and unproductive night for the members and the public.  I urge the Senate to honor the original agreement and pass the state budget.”

RI Senate To Vote On $256.5 Million DD Budget

By Gina Macris

Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo’s request for an overall $10 million increase in developmental disability spending in the next fiscal year appears to be headed for full approval by the General Assembly, as the Senate prepares to vote on the $9.2-billion state budget before the current budget cycle closes June 30 and the July 4 holiday weekend begins. 

On June 22, the House ratified the recommendation of its Finance Committee, with Speaker Nicholas A. Mattiello, D-Cranston, saying in advance of the vote that legislators have heard the message of direct care workers making poverty-level pay in high-responsibility jobs.

The Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to act on the budget at a hearing June 27 at 2:30 p.m. in Room 211 of the State House.  A floor vote in the Senate is expected Thursday or Friday.

About $4 million of the developmental disability spending increase would be applied to the current budget and an additional $6 million would go into the new budget cycle beginning July 1. The total allocation for developmental disabilities in the next fiscal year would be $256.5 million.

Even as the Rhode Island House was deliberating, U.S. Senate Republicans in Washington unveiled a health care bill that would severely cut Medicaid funding -– the backbone of essential medical care and other support services for the poor and disabled throughout the country. Within 24 hours, enough Republican opposition to the bill emerged in the Senate to threaten its passage. 

The proposed state budget in Rhode Island includes a total of $11 million for one-time raises for home health care workers and those who work directly with adults with developmental disabilities. Those wage increases would raise the average hourly pay for developmental disability workers from about $11.14 to about $11.69 an hour.

The original language in Governor Raimondo’s proposal used a separate budget article to spell out assurances that the money set aside for the raises could not be used for anything else, but the House version eliminates that article and embeds those mandates elsewhere in the revised budget bill. 

Workers can expect to see the incremental boost in pay no later than Oct. 1. Three months later, on Jan. 1, 2018, the House-approved budget would raise the minimum wage from $9.60 to $10.10 an hour. On Jan. 1, 2019, the minimum wage would advance again, to $10.50 an hour.

State Sen. Louis DiPalma, the leader of a drive to raise the pay of developmental disability workers to $15 an hour by July 1, 2021, said the day after the House vote that he has already begun work on the next phase of the campaign.

Last fall, DiPalma’s “15 in 5” campaign issued an early call for direct care raises, while the executive branch was still working on the budget proposal. In January, when the governor submitted her budget to the General Assembly, she highlighted the pay increases, along with a hike to the minimum wage and other initiatives.  

Several bills intended to speed up the timetable for a $15 hourly wage were introduced in the House during the current session, including one sponsored by Rep. Jean Philippe Barros, D-Pawtucket, Deputy Majority Leader, which would set the starting date for that increase to next Jan. 1.

The prospective budget doesn’t support a $15 hourly rate, but Barros still got a hearing on his bill before the House Finance Committee on June 21.

Direct care workers do an “awful lot of work for some of the neediest” residents of Rhode Island, and “they certainly deserve the benefit for their labor,” Barros said.

Massachusetts is set to increase the wages of direct care workers to $15 an hour in 2018, a development that could exacerbate already high turnover in direct care work in Rhode Island.

Figures on turnover presented to the General Assembly in recent months range from 30 percent a year to 60 percent of new hires in the first six months. There are about three dozen developmental disability service agencies operating in Rhode Island and each one has a different rate of turnover.

Testifying in favor of Barros’ bill, Robert Marshall, spokesman for the Rhode Island Developmental Disabilities Council, said that high turnover, a problem for years, has had a negative impact on those who need care.

Moreover, the nature of the work is changing to emphasize more individualized services, Marshall said, an apparent allusion to new federal Medicaid requirements and federal court enforcement of changes in daytime developmental disability services under provisions of a 2014 consent decree.

The greater individualization means that jobs in the direct service field are no longer interchangeable, he said. 

“Massachusetts will be very happy for us to train the staff and then give them a nearly 50 percent increase” in pay, Marshall said.  In other words, he said, a worker in East Providence can drive an extra three miles and do the same job in Seekonk, Mass., for significantly more money.

The money that is now spent on training new workers and overtime to fill critical gaps in services would probably cover most of the pay increase, Marshall said.

Part of the $10-million increase in the developmental disability budget would be used to fill a $3 million shortfall in the current fiscal year in supplemental payments to private providers and to add another $500,000 to that allowance in the budget cycle that begins July 1. 

The combined increases would hike supplemental payments from $18.5 million to $22 million a year –about 10 percent of all reimbursements made to private providers of developmental disability services – a level that DiPalma, the vice-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has flagged as a sign that the standard funding formula for individual clients is not working.

The supplemental payments reflect successful appeals, on a case-by-case basis, of a funding formula applied to a controversial assessment which Rhode Island uses to determine an individual’s ability to function independently. The funding formula does not take into account a client’s goals and preferences in determining individual authorizations – a problem cited by a federal court monitor overseeing reforms to the developmental disability system.

All developmental disability services in Rhode Island are funded by Medicaid at a ratio of slightly more than one federal dollar for every state dollar.

Medicaid has long been an entitlement program in which the federal government matches state outlays for a wide range of services, ranging from health care and nursing home services to specialized educational and therapeutic services for children with disabilities and community-based supports for disabled adults.

The U.S. Senate Republican bill – devised behind closed doors and released on June 22 - would set per-capita limits on federal Medicaid reimbursements to states and threaten many of the services Rhode Island now offers.

The entire Rhode Island Congressional delegation has slammed the bill, saying it amounts to a massive transfer of wealth to the rich at the expense of the poor, the elderly and the disabled through $600 billion in tax cuts.

In a statement, Sen. Jack Reed said, “Trumpcare-supporting Republicans can make all the claims they want, but their motives are obvious: they want massive tax cuts for the wealthiest at the expense of hardworking Americans whose lives, in many cases, depend on access to care.”

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said the measure “would gut Medicaid with even deeper cuts than the wretched House version. This will blow huge holes in state budgets, forcing terrible choices between opioid treatment, care for seniors, and students with disabilities. And that’s just the beginning.  It goes after women’s health care. It would allow insurance companies to charge seniors more, and sell plans that don’t offer the basic care Americans expect. It would be bad for Rhode Islanders.”

Governor Raimondo said she will join Reed, Whitehouse and Reps. David Cicilline and James Langevin in “active opposition to this disastrous proposal." 

She accused Congressional Republicans of “trying to pass an immoral piece of legislation,” putting “American and Rhode Island lives at risk so that millionaires and billionaires can get a tax cut.”