Consent Decree Drives Proposed Hike In RI DD Spending

By Gina Macris

Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee would add more than $30 million to developmental disabilities spending to raise starting pay for direct care workers to $20 an hour, hike dozens of reimbursement rates to private service providers, and add ten new staff to help implement a 2014 consent decree.

The pay increase, costing $29.9 million in federal-state Medicaid funding, would be the third annual hike intended to help private agencies and the so-called “self-directed” population managing their own service programs. The wage increase would comply with a federal court order that dates back two years.

In 2021, when the starting wage for direct care workers was $13.18 an hour, Chief Judge John J. McConnell, Jr. ordered the state to raise wages to $20 an hour by 2024, calling a lack of staff the single biggest barrier to implementing the day-to-day requirements of the consent decree, albeit not the only one.

In 2022, with pay raised to $15.75 an hour, the Rhode Island system added 106 new direct care workers from January through June.

On July 1, 2022, the starting pay increased again to $18 an hour, and the state, prodded by the court, launched a workforce initiative to recruit candidates for direct care jobs. In September alone, the system filled 146 vacancies, according to data collected by an independent court monitor.

Yet there were still 693 vacancies in some three dozen private agencies and as many as 1,000 job openings among self-directed consumers and families, the monitor reported in early November.

overview of proposed DD spending - RI Department of Administration

In all, McKee seeks a total of nearly $417.4 million for all developmental disability services in the fiscal year beginning July 1, including slightly more than $385 million for the privately-run system, the backbone of consent decree compliance. That figure for private agency and self-directed services represents a bump of about $32.2 million over the current allocation of about $352.9 million.

A parallel network of state-run group homes would get $32.4 million in the next budget, or almost $1.8 million more than the current funding level of $30.8 million.

The budget for the next fiscal year, July 1,2023-June 30, 2024, will finance the state’s final push to comply with the consent decree before the deadline on June 30, 2024.

The state agreed in 2014 that by mid-2024, it would eliminate sheltered workshops paying sub-minimum wages and move away from isolated day care centers. Instead, there would be a de-centralized network of individualized services enabling adults with developmental disabilities to become integrated in their communities.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has said that Rhode Island will likely miss the 2024 deadline if it moves at the current pace. The DOJ cited numerous factors contributing to a lack of services, particularly the individualized services in the community that are the cornerstone of the consent decree. A far-reaching federal court order issued Dec. 6 lists some 50 requirements that must be completed by the deadline on June 30, 2024.

McKee wants the new consent decree implementation staff on board as early as possible.

A spokesman for the state Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals (BHDDH) said the department hopes to complete the hiring process by the fourth quarter, which runs from April through June. The cost for these added workers would be $203,275 for the first full year, taking into account federal Medicaid reimbursements and savings from staff turnover in other positions, according to McKee’s executive summary of the spending plan.

Eight of the ten positions will be permanently added to the Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD), the BHDDH spokesman said.

The DDD jobs include:

• an “interdepartmental project manager”

• a “chief of staff for development training and continuous quality improvement”

• ·an “associate administrator for community services”

• five positions promoting community development as it relates to adults with developmental disabilities

The salaries will range from $66,162 to $95,552 a year, the BHDDH spokesman said.

Two other employees not attached to BHDDH will help implement an outside consultant’s recommendations for reimbursement rates for private providers.

Undertaking a rate review itself was part of a court order issued in October, 2021. Consultants disclosed preliminary recommendations last September that called for increases ranging from about 25 percent to 97 percent in dozens of reimbursement categories to private providers.

But McKee said in an executive summary of the budget that the consultant’s report is “currently under review and may further increase the recommended amount of financing” allocated to the private developmental disabilities system.

Among other actions, the Dec. 6 court order requires the state to identify successful pilot programs promoting integration that have been developed by private service providers during the past year and make those programs available to all those who want them, regardless of the way consultants have structured reimbursements to the private sector.

The consent decree has brought more transparency to budgeting by generating pressure on the General Assembly to include adults with developmental disabilities in the biannual caseload estimating conference, a public process used to project the state’s obligations for public assistance, like food stamps. Developmental disability costs were added in 2021.

The most recent caseload estimating conference, in November, projected there will be $8.5 million less in reimbursements to private service providers than budgeted for the current fiscal year because the population is expected to use fewer support services than initially budgeted.

McKee’s proposal takes the caseload estimating conference projections into account, as well as other related costs, in reducing developmental disabilities services by about $4.4 million, from about $352.9 million to about $348.5 million, in the current fiscal year.

The caseload estimating conference also highlighted the fact that consumers and families often must appeal individual budget allocations to get needed services – a feature of the current reimbursement system which the federal court has cited as a weakness.

Projections for the current fiscal year include $22.8 million in successful appeals, or $5.8 million more than budgeted. An independent court monitor has said consumers should not have to make lengthy appeals to get the individualized services to which they are entitled.

The consent decree draws its authority from the Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision, re-affirmed the Integration Mandate of the Americans With Disabilities Act, requiring public services for all persons with disabilities to help them lead regular lives in the their communities.

Developmental disabilities funding makes up about two thirds of the overall BHDDH budget, which is currently funded at about $597.1 million. McKee would raise the BHDDH total to about $619.6 million in the next fiscal year, with more than half the revenue coming from federal Medicaid reimbursements.

Low RI Medicaid Rates Strain All Healthcare Services, Witnesses Say

By Gina Macris

Annette Bourbonniere

Without a personal care assistant, Annette Bourbonniere of Newport needs up to five hours each day to get herself dressed in the morning.

For the past year, she hasn’t been able to find regular help for a position that pays $15 an hour, the Rhode Island-approved Medicaid rate for the services she needs, unchanged for the last 18 years.

Not only is it impossible for her to engage in productive activity, Bourbonniere says, but “I worry every day how I am going to survive.”

Bourbonniere, seated in a high-backed power chair, was one of hundreds of people from all walks of life who converged on the Senate Finance Committee April 28 to hammer home the message that the state’s Medicaid program is broken.

The witnesses testified for a cluster of bills which, taken together, would stabilize Medicaid-funded services with one-time rate increases and set up a rate review process every two years, with a 24-member committee drawn from the community advising the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS). There is no estimate of the overall cost of the bills.

In a letter to the Senate Finance Committee, the Director of Administration, James E. Thorsen, and the acting Secretary of Health and Human Services, Ana P. Novais, indicated that the prospects for immediate changes appear gloomy.

Thorsen and Novais said there are 74,000 separate Medicaid rates in the state’s program, all of which cannot be revised in one year as the legislation requires. A rate review “of this magnitude” would take at least five years, they said.

They said the bill establishing a 24-member advisory committee for Medicaid rate review instead might be seen as “establishing policy and rate setting”, rather than advising EOHHS, the agency with the legal authority to set rates.

There is also an appearance of a conflict of interest in that the potential make-up of the committee includes members who would be recommending rates for other members of the same group, Thorsen said.

Support for Medicaid reform remains uncertain in the House, where Rep. Julie Casimiro, D-North Kingstown, has organized companion legislation adding up to a Medicaid overhaul..

At the outset of the hearing, State Sen. Ryan Pearson, D-Cumberland, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said the Senate has already made Medicaid reform one of its top priorities in the current session.

Louis DiPalma

The legislation was spearheaded by Sen. Louis DiPalma, D-Middletown, first vice president of the Senate Finance Committee, who received repeated praise from the speakers for his relentless focus on equity issues in the human services.

Dozens of witnesses told the committee that the reimbursement rates to community-based health and social service programs fall so far below costs that:

• Access is shrinking to out-patient services that can prevent costly hospitalizations and even life-threatening situations.

• Caregivers ranging from doctors and dentists to nursing assistants and personal assistants to those with disabilities are either leaving their fields or leaving the state.

• Hospitals are left to deal with more patients who have nowhere else to go, while they lean on private insurers for more money to fill the gap. In the end, those who buy private insurance must foot the bill for escalating premiums.

According to the testimony:

• Four hundred infants with special needs are waiting for early intervention services to which they are legally entitled.

• Nearly six hundred elderly are waiting for home care services that will prevent them from going into nursing homes.

• Almost 200 children and youth are waiting for psychiatric care, sometimes in hospital emergency rooms.

Sherrica Randle

At the hearing, Sherrica Randle said her 13-year-old daughter has been hospitalized three times in the last six months for behavioral issues. During the most recent episode, her daughter spent nearly two weeks in the emergency room of Newport Hospital for lack of a pediatric psychiatric bed at Bradley Hospital, Randle said.

Elsewhere, a teenage girl who had made a “serious” suicide attempt nevertheless had to wait four months for mental health services, according to Alexandra Hunt, clinical director of Tides Family Services.

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the labor shortage in front-line human services but many agencies have struggled for years to pay enough money to prevent workers from leaving the field, the witnesses said. Jamie Lehane, President and CEO of Newport Mental Health, said he had to sell a building a few years ago to continue making payroll and avoid a shut-down.

Like other community social service and home care agencies, providers of services for adults with developmental disabilities can’t get qualified personnel to work for Medicaid-approved rates, starting at $15 an hour.

These providers compete with retail and fast food chains, which pay more for jobs that are less demanding, said Casey Gartland, representing the Community Provider Network of Rhode Island, a trade association.

Unlike other sectors of the Medicaid program, services for adults with developmental disabilities are subject federal oversight because of a 2014 civil rights consent decree and several court orders, one of which requires the state to raise wages to $20 an hour by 2024.

The proposed budget of Governor Dan McKee would raise the wages of front line developmental disability workers to $18 an hour as an intermediate step on July 1.

But the most recent data about the workforce and inflation has prompted DiPalma to sponsor legislation that would raise the pay of developmental disability workers to $21 an hour on July 1. Rep. Evan Shanley, D-Warwick, has filed a companion bill in the House.

The Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals held a press conference in favor of that proposal just before the start of the hearing on Medicaid reform.

Doctors, dentists, and hospital executives testified in person and in writing that the state’s Medicaid program has a ripple effect on the healthcare of all Rhode Islanders.

The case of Women and Infants Hospital, where 80 percent of Rhode Island mothers give birth, illustrates that point.

Shannon Sullivan

Shannon Sullivan, President and CEO of Women and Infants, said it is the ninth largest stand-alone maternity hospital in the United States.

Nearly forty-five percent of its revenue comes from Medicaid Managed Care, which pays half of the Massachusetts managed care rate for obstetrical births, she said.

Simple math shows that the situation is unsustainable, she said. “This is not an issue that will go away, and it is not an issue that we have much time on,” Sullivan said.

Without Women and Infants, women experiencing difficulties in their pregnancies would have to go to Boston or New Haven to receive the same level of care, she said.

Gail Robbins, senior vice president of Care New England, the parent company of Women and Infants, said that because of low Medicaid rates, hospitals must put pressure on private insurers, whose rates are 200 to 300 percent more than Medicaid.

“It’s not a healthy bottom line,” Robbins said.

DiPalma said hospitals are not awash in cash. They absorb considerable costs in uncompensated care of uninsured patients, and must pay hefty licensing fees to the state, he said.

The Department of Administration and EOHHS support the programs funded by Medicaid and recognize the need for regular rate reviews, Thorsen and Novais said.

But “any changes to the rate setting process should be carefully measured and balanced to avoid significant negative funding impacts of other important programs such as education, public safety, and natural resources,” they said in their letter.he said.In their letter,

The state already spends 40 percent of its general revenue on human servicesm the two administrators said. By comparison, Massachusetts pays considerably more on the human services, up to 56 percent of its budget, according to DiPalma.

Others at the hearing saw the situation as a question of values.

Bourbonniere, a consultant on accessibility and inclusion, said she was dismayed when she attended an online meeting with EOHHS officials last fall and they said at the outset, with apparent pride, that Rhode Island has a lower Medicaid expenditure per person enrolled than the median in the United States.

For her and others going without services, “this was crushing,” she said in a letter to the committee.

Paying personal care assistants and other essential workers a living wage contributes to the state’s economy in the goods, services, and taxes they pay and the businesses they support, Bourbonniere said.

These essential workers also enable people with disabilities to earn a living. “Isn’t that better than the current investment in maintaining poverty,” she said.

The bills heard April 28 are:

• S2200- provides a rate-setting review every two years for all medical and human service programs licensed by the state or having a contract with the state, including those funded by the federal-state Medicaid program.

• S2306 - provides one-time increases to base rates in the Medicaid program for home care services

• s2648 - funds pass-through wage increases to those who work in long-term care in the community with $17.7 million in the established “Perry-Sullivan” law, rather than allowing the governor to use one-time funding from the American Rescue Plan in the next budget. Proponents say the state could be penalized by the federal government from using ARPA to replace or “supplant” existing funds.

• S2311 - provides for a 24-member advisory committee to EEOHS for the rate-setting process

• S2546 - provides for one-time Medicaid rate increases to early intervention and outreach programs for young children with special needs.

• S2588 - provides one-time increases to Medicaid rates for dental services and includes chiropractic care for the first time in the Medicad program.

• S2598 - increases the daily reimbursement rate to nursing homes by 20 percent for single-occupancy rooms with private bathrooms.

• S2884 - Provides a substantial increase to the Medicaid managed care rate for hospital births

• S2597 - eliminates the need for annual eligibility review for the eligible for the federal Katie Beckett program for children with disabilities, as long as a doctor says their condition is unlikely to change. the bill also allows families of eligible children to request additional service hours.

  All photos from Capitol TV

RI General Assembly Will Handle Court-Related DD Issues DD Issues In Regular Budget Talks

By Gina Macris

The pace of discussions for complying with a court-ordered overhaul of Rhode Island’s developmental disability system is expected to pick up as early as next week, when newly elevated Governor Daniel McKee rolls out his budget proposal for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

McKee was sworn in March 2, replacing Gina Raimondo, who resigned as governor after clearing final hurdles in Washington, DC to become Secretary of Commerce. Raimondo’s office said in mid-January that McKee, then Lt. Governor, would be responsible for submitting the budget proposal to the General Assembly.

It remains unclear to what degree, if at all, the proposed state budget will incorporate additional money for initial steps toward compliance with a federal court order enforcing a 2014 civil rights agreement.

While uncertainty about funding hovers, court-ordered discussions organized by the state Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals (BHDDH) have been underway since last August to develop a path forward for providing services that will encourage integration of adults with developmental disabilities in their communities, in accordance with the 2014 consent decree and the Americans With Disabilities Act.

A recent report to Chief Judge John J. McConnell, Jr. of the U. S. District Court indicates short-term recommendations are taking shape to address some of the 16 points the judge laid out in a reform agenda last summer.

He gave the state until June 30 to develop a three-year implementation plan that will achieve full compliance with the consent decree by 2024.

Representatives of the House and Senate leadership participated in some court-ordered reform talks until McConnell issued an order Jan. 6 which said the three-year plan must include these specifics:

• a $20 minimum wage for direct care workers by fiscal 2024.

• Incorporation of the developmental disabilities caseload in the formal process for estimating the state’s public assistance obligations for budget calculations, beginning this year.

On March 3, House Speaker Joseph Shekarchi and Senate President Dominick Ruggerio issued a new statement on how they will handle legislative issues raised by the reform efforts:

“Specific issues will be analyzed and discussed in legislative committees as part of the public hearing process on pending legislation as well as the upcoming state budget.”

The two leaders continued: “The members of the General Assembly care deeply about individuals with developmental disabilities and ensuring a strong continuum of care, and the Senate President and House Speaker believe that we have an obligation as a society to provide strong services and supports for all vulnerable Rhode Islanders.”

The leadership had withdrawn from reform talks out of concern that their representatives’ participation could be perceived as tacit approval of change outside the legislative process, according to separate letters sent to McConnell Feb. 3.

Shekarchi’s and Ruggerio’s statement did not specifically mention the direct care worker wages or making the developmental disabilities numbers part of the twice-yearly Caseload Estimating Conference, the budgeting tool used by the governor and the legislature.

Development of a new approach for determining how to support the individualized plans of the developmentally disabled population is at the heart of the overhaul. The existing fee-for-service system was designed 10 years ago for congregate care, where one or two staff members could oversee as many as ten clients in a day care center or sheltered workshop. The U.S. Department of Justice found that model violated the ADA’s Integration Mandate.

In November, McConnell heard testimony that the current funding ceiling for the private provider system, roughly $268.7 million in federal/state Medicaid money, will not support integrated services, which are much more labor-intensive — and thus, more costly — than congregate care. The cost of correcting the non-compliance could increase the developmental disabilities budget by nearly 50 percent, according to one estimate.

Because of the uncertainty over funding, five workgroups organized by BHDDH are focusing on short-term changes that can ease administrative burdens on providers and make the state bureaucracy more user-friendly for the individuals served and their families, according to a progress report submitted to McConnell at the end of February.

According to the report, BHDDH expects to have detailed information by March 31 on:

• shifting from quarterly to annual per-person budget authorizations

• streamlining dozens of private provider billing codes, many of which require documentation of staff time in 15-minute increments for each client served

• simplifying the process of writing each client’s annual service plan “to reduce repeated questions, frustrations, and errors requiring correction and intervention.”

The report recommends adding a second assessment or new questions or criteria to improve the accuracy of the standardized Supports Intensity Scale-A, (SIS-A) interview, used to determine service needs and funding levels.

Improved assessments would reduce reliance on appeals. Interviewers also need training on cultural differences, it said.

Additional recommendations include:

• a training program for parents on how to approach the SIS-A, which has been the subject of frequent complaints over the years from parents

• clarification of the process for appealing funding determinations made as a result of the SIS-A, and developing ways to more quickly resolve appeals

• consolidation of separate applications for Medicaid and for Medicaid-funded services into one process

• a request for a waiver from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for Medicaid eligibility redeterminations for persons with developmental disabilities, who have life-long conditions.

The report said long-term revision of the fiscal and reimbursement system will be implemented by December, 2022.

The workgroups developing the recommendations include both state officials and representatives of the community, including individuals who themselves receive services, families, advocates, and service providers.

The groups’ recommendations are reviewed by the appropriate department-level directors and other key officials, according to the report.

Once final recommendations are analyzed and decisions made by the state, a “cohesive workplan” that will be submitted to McConnell on or before June 30 as required by an order the judge issued last July 30, the report said.

RI DD System Needs Stable Funding For Quality Services and Productive Lives - Commission

By Gina Macris

A successful model for funding Rhode Island’s developmental disability services would be more complex than simply increasing workers’ wages, members of a special legislative commission agreed at a meeting May 6.

Kelly Donovan, a commission member who herself receives services, said the work of the support person is “not a job; it’s a commitment.“

In a high-quality system of services, Donovan said, direct support professionals and the people they serve have a relationship. They develop strong bonds.

The discussion nevertheless returned repeatedly to the lack of funding that permeates the system, with rules that commission members say make it rigid and unresponsive to those needing services.

Peter Quattromani, CEO of United Cerebral Palsy of Rhode Island, said agencies that ask their employees to “ commit” to the persons they serve also require them to commit themselves to “a life of poverty” because employers, dependent on state funding, can’t pay salaries commensurate with professional work.

As a result, Quattromani said, the agencies are hiring “very temporary employees.”

“We don’t appreciate what it takes on the part of the individual to turn their life over to a staff person,” Quattromani said. Every time there’s turnover, there’s a new intrusion in that person’s life, he said.

The CEO of West Bay Residential Services, Gloria Quinn, said “I can think of examples when people go along with people and don’t know them. It gets complicated to do the right thing at the right time.”

But West Bay Residential has an annual staff turnover rate of 34 percent and a job vacancy rate of 15 percent, said Quinn, who recommended a system that is adequately funding, “including appropriate compensation for a well-trained workforce.”

At the same time, she said, there are employees who are doing an “incredibly important and skillful job” even without the compensation they deserve.

Sen. Louis DiPalma, D-Middletown, the commission chairman, said there is a great disparity in pay in two parallel systems of services.

“We do value the profession” of supporting adults with developmental disabilities, he said, as long as it is the state-operated network of group homes and facilities called RICLAS, short for Rhode Island Community Living and Supports. But private providers, who perform the same direct support work, are not valued, DiPalma said, referring to the state’s chronic underfunding of these agencies.

He said he never saw the situation quite that way until Tom Kane, CEO of AccessPoint RI, framed it in those terms during a recent budget hearing before the Senate Finance Committee.

RICLAS workers start at about $18 an hour, while entry-level workers in the private system average about $11.40 an hour. On an annual basis, the starting salary at RICLAS is $37,291, according to a spokeswoman for the state Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals (BHDDH). As state employees, RICLAS workers also get a full package of benefits.

DiPalma said that when the current fee-for-service reimbursement model was enacted by the General Assembly in 2011, the “right questions weren’t asked. We can’t let that happen again.”

He said he firmly believes that today, all legislators would say they value the work done in supporting adults with developmental disabilities, but “the critical thing is ‘how do we get there’? “ He alluded to a reimbursement model in which wages reflect the value of the work.

In Kelly Donovan’s vision of the future, adults with developmental disabilities will receive training and support in making their own decisions in an informed manner. And support persons will respect those decisions, she said.

Kate Sherlock, a commission member and lawyer with the Rhode Island Disability Law Center, concurred.

For a long time, the role of the staff person has been to “speak up for people,” she said. Instead, staff should facilitate decisions made by clients.

But clients “do not have the real opportunity to decide what they want, because there are not enough options,” Sherlock said. Decisions should not be “either-or,” she said. “It shouldn’t be ‘do you want chocolate or vanilla ice cream.’ “

“People want to live with people they choose. They want a job they like and they want to make a decent amount of money,” Sherlock said.

Enabling clients to make meaningful decisions about belonging to their communities and engaging in activities they want, as well as giving them the opportunity to eat healthy foods and be active and fit will at the same time elevate the staff role into a position that can have greater impact and be more desirable – even fun, Sherlock said.

The Disability Law Center supports a bill that would give legal standing to adults who support those who need assistance in decision-making, Sherlock said, but the measure is encountering difficulties in the Senate. DiPalma said he would look into it.

Commission members agree that Rhode Island needs to abandon its fee-for-service reimbursement system in favor of one that gives clients an annual budget with flexibility to spend it on what they want and need to enable them to live regular lives in their communities, in accordance with a 2014 consent decree and federal Medicaid rules reinforcing the Integration mandate of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA).

Not only is the current system under-funded but it is saddled by rules that make it too restrictive, they say.

Among the needs discussed May 6 are funding for:

• training and career paths for staffers

• Technology, such as smart phones and other devices and software, that can help clients become more independent from staff.

• ·Easier access to transportation, which might include Uber and Lyft options to lessen clients’ dependence on staff time, which can be better used providing other types of supports

• Better access to affordable housing

• More intensive community-based mental health services that can prevent psychiatric hospitalizations.

In addition, the developmental disabilities caseload must be counted in a way that better informs budget makers, according to Quinn, the CEO of West Bay Residential Services.

All the recommendations which members have presented through May 6 can be found here .

The next meeting will be May 22, when commission members are expected to continue presenting their recommendations.

RI Supported Employment Services Hampered By Lack of Trained Workers, High Caregiver Turnover

By Gina Macris

About 60 percent of all those who start training at Rhode Island College to provide supported employment services to adults with developmental disabilities drop out of the certificate program,  a factor that threatens reform efforts embodied in two federal civil rights agreements.

The drop-out rate in the training program at RIC’s Sherlock Center on Disabilities underlines a shortage of direct care workers in general and in particular a lack of staff qualified to meet the demand from adults with developmental disabilities for employment-related services and to satisfy the requirements of a 2014 federal consent decree and a companion settlement a year earlier.

The specialized training at the Sherlock Center includes classes and field experience in the nuances of supported employment services, from the time an individual starts looking for a job to on-the-job assistance, long-term career planning, and building good relationships with the business community.

The Sherlock Center is under contract with the state to lead the way in educating those who work with adults having developmental disabilities in the best professional practices, consistent with the principles of the consent decree, which puts individuals’ needs and personal preferences at the center of the services they receive.

Workers must successfully complete a course like the Sherlock Center’s before the state will allow private service providers to assign them to help job-seekers find employment that suits them and the businesses that hire them. The Sherlock Center offers its training tuition-free to those who plan to work in one of two pilot supported employment programs;  one funded by the Rhode Island Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals (BHDDH),  and another run by the Office of Rehabilitation Services in the Department of Human Services.

The topic of supported employment, primarily the BHDDH program, dominated the discussion at the monthly meeting of the Employment First Task Force Oct. 10. The Task Force is a creation of the 2014 consent decree, which requires Rhode Island to shift from sheltered workshops and segregated day programs to inclusive day services, in accordance with the 1999 Olmstead decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. The decision re-affirmed the integration mandate of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Vicki Ferrarra                   photo by Anne Peters 

The task force includes representatives of individuals with developmental disabilities, their families, and various community organizations with a stake in the developmental disability service system.  

Vicki Ferrara, who represented the Rhode Island Association of People Supporting Employment First (RI APSE), a professional organization, said there was a 40 percent completion rate in the Sherlock Center training program.

She works as the Sherlock Center’s coordinator for integrated employment.  The group she represented at the meeting is part of a national organization involved in setting professional-level standards for various aspects of supported employment services.

Ferrarra said some direct care workers complete the supported employment training and then leave the field of developmental disability services entirely, often because of low wages.  

Others drop out of the course because they find the work too challenging, she said.

Still others cannot complete the classes or field work because the shortage of direct care workers is so acute that their employers call them in to cover vacant shifts on the job for basic health and safety reasons.

Ferrara said the state does not pay for substitutes while the regular caregivers are in class.

She said the direct care workforce must be stabilized before the state gains enough qualified job coaches,  job developers and supported employment specialists.

Many new hires leave when they realize the job of providing direct support to adults with developmental disabilities is complicated and carries many responsibilities. The average wages are estimated at about $11.50 an hour, including a pay bump of 36 cents an hour that is being processed by the workers’ employers this month. 

The average turnover ranges from 60 percent in the first six months to about 30 percent over 12 months, according to figures presented to the General Assembly earlier this year.

Ferrarra said workers should have at least six months’ experience, learning the basics of direct care, before they are sent to train for specialized credentials. In at least some parts of the service system, new workers get acclimated by working under supervision with just a few specific clients, learning their needs and preferences and strategies for cope with any challenges they might present.

But Ferrara said some workers arrive at the Sherlock Center for specialized employment-related training during their first week on the job.

In September, an official of the supported employment program run by BHDDH reported that the enrollment of individuals seeking jobs was 92 short of the available spaces, a maximum of 517. (Click here for related article.) 

On Oct. 10, Howard Cohen, a member of the Task Force who is the father of a man with developmental disabilities, said a lack of qualified staff has come up repeatedly when he has participated in other discussions about supported employment.

Ferrara provided information on the three-part training program at the Sherlock Center as the Employment First Task Force was considering recommendations it planned to make to the state about the future of supported employment services.  

Instead, questions arose on details that needed clarification, like how the clients for supported employment services have been selected, and how families that hire their own workers through a fiscal intermediary to support their loved ones can get broader access to these services. 

Brian Gosselin, Chief Strategy Officer for the state Executive Office Of Human Services, urged the task force to put its questions in writing and submit them to the state. Gosselin was involved in the design of the BHDDH supported employment program.  That pilot will complete its first program year at the end of December and is under evaluation. By year’s end, the ORS program also will be well into the second half of its initial 12-month run.

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.”

Mattiello: RI Direct Care Workers Have Been Heard

By Gina Macris

During recent deliberations on the state budget that emerged from the Rhode Island House Finance Committee last week, legislators considered very carefully testimony about the plight of the state’s most vulnerable citizens and those who care for them, particularly with respect to nursing homes, House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello said in a briefing June 20.

Mattiello                         RI state PHOTO

The Finance Committee’s budget prevents any further reductions to Medicaid reimbursement rates to hospitals and nursing homes and commits $11 million in federal and state Medicaid funds to raise the pay of home health care aides and those providing direct support to adults with developmental disabilities.    

“Thank you for the viewpoint,” he said of those who testified for the direct care raises, and we’re glad that in these difficult fiscal times we were able to accommodate that,” he said.

Mattiello’s remarks signaled a growing awareness over the last year about poverty-level wages and high turnover which has destabilized the direct care field and, many say, affected the quality of care.

Along the same vein, the proposed $9.2 billion spending package approved by the House Finance Committee promises to restore free bus passes for the elderly and disabled, at a cost of $3.4 million a year for the next two fiscal years.

The compromise budget that will go before the full House June 22 also puts $26 million into Mattiello’s signature car tax phase-out, enabling 150,00 vehicles to fall off the property tax rolls in the fiscal year that begins July 1. And it partially funds Governor Gina Raimondo’s free tuition plan, allowing two years of free attendance at the Community College of Rhode Island for students who maintain a 2.5 grade average and meet other conditions.

Mattiello said he was proud of the budget, which uses a variety of approaches to close a $134-million revenue gap and still manages to deliver on promises made to Rhode Islanders.

“I didn’t say I was happy with this budget. I said I was very proud of this budget,” Mattiello said.

“You work with what you have and you maximize the benefit to the taxpayers. That’s exactly what we did,” Mattiello said.

State Rep. Joseph N. McNarmara-D-Warwick, echoed Mattiello’s remarks, saying he was particularly proud of the “core values we have represented as the majority of Democrats” and "have defended in a tough budget,” including free tuition, raises for direct care workers and the prevention of erosion of reimbursements to hospitals and nursing homes.

But Mattiello interjected, “I’m going to stop you, Joe. This is not a Democratic caucus. These are the values of the House of Representatives.” McNamara, the chairman of the House Committee on Health, Education and Welfare, also chairs the state Democratic Party.

As for the cost-cutting that must be done to balance the budget – including $25 million in unspecified reductions – Mattiello said: “We conferred with the Governor and the Senate. The Governor believes that although this will be difficult, it’s attainable and we agreed it can be done. “

While the budget uses one-time revenue to close some gaps, it will be paired with one-time expenses and will not add to the state’s structural deficit, Mattiello said.

Even though revenues are lower than expected this year, the economy seems to be going in the right direction, with unemployment down to a level not seen since before the recession of 2008, Mattiello said.

“This is our year to continue our momentum,” he said.  “We’re not going to tax our way” out of the revenue shortfall, “we’re not going to cut our way out of it,” but “we hope to grow our way out of it” as the economy continues to improve.