The Service Employees International Union Local 509 last week filed to reopen the landmark Ricci v. Okin court case, which brought about upgrades in care at Fernald and other state developmental centers in the 1970 and 1980s.
The case was closed after the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals in 2008 dismissed claims brought by the Fernald plaintiffs that the administration was in violation of Fernald residents' Individual Service Plans.
The SEIU is alleging that rising caseloads for DDS service coordinators coupled with ongoing and planned layoffs of those workers have made it impossible to carry out ISPs of DDS clients. The result, the SEIU argues, is specifically a violation of U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Tauro's 1993 disengagement order in Ricci v. Okin, which required adequate care for the Ricci plaintiffs.
In a staff update last week, DDS Commissioner Elin Howe acknowledged the pending cuts of the service coordinators “will have a profound effect on individuals and families who rely on us for support…”
Yet Howe is accelerating the layoffs at Fernald, where residents and their families also rely on DDS for support. All remaining nurses at the Center received layoff notices last week, telling them they will be gone in as little as 20 days. That is on top of waves of layoffs of direct-care workers and clinicians since last year that have resulted in uneven care at best for the remaining residents.
Fernald is now down to about 70 residents (down from 300 in 2003 when it was first targeted for closure). There are reports that 15 of those residents will be moving out this week.
The Patrick administration has set a date of Wednesday for closing Fernald. But many guardians are exercising their appeal rights to the evictions, so it doesn't appear that the lights will be shut off quite yet. It's possible that the administration will continue to slowly bleed the Center to death for a few more months.
The Legislature's budget conference committee, meanwhile, effectively washed its hands of Fernald for the final time last week. The committee excluded Fernald yet again from a last-ditch effort to undertake a cost-benefit analysis prior to the planned closing of four developmental centers targeted by the Patrick administration in Massachusetts.
It appears that no one in the administration and few in the Legislature really want a cost analysis done in closing Fernald. A true cost analysis would highlight the extent of the additional staffing cutbacks that will be in store for the residents and others in the system. (Remember the personal promise Governor Patrick made to a Fernald family member that he would see to it that a cost analysis was done? That promise has conveniently been forgotten.)
You just have to look at the service coordinators to understand why the administration doesn't want to publicly discuss budget numbers. In court documents, the SEIU states that DDS has informed the union that the Fiscal Year 2011 budget will result in cuts of at least 63 service coordinators throughout the system, which would push caseloads from 55 to an average of 65 under a “best case” scenario. That is more than 50 percent higher than caseloads were in 1990, when the federal court last intervened to prevent service coordinator layoffs.
Based on that scenario, DDS has already notified at least 28 service coordinators that they will be laid off as of July 3, the SEIU stated. The SEIU motion to reopen the Ricci case terms the rising service coordinator caseloads “the canary in the mine (that) can foretell impending systemic failure of the ISP (Individual Service Plan) process…”
Ironically, the service coordinators are funded from the DDS administrative line item, which is being cut by $5 million from the current fiscal year. So, in addition to cutting the service coordinators, DDS Commissioner Howe announced in her staff update last week that she is reorganizing the DDS central office. As part of that reorganization, Howe is reportedly laying off an assistant commissioner who was in charge of managing the closings of Fernald and three other developmental centers in Massachusetts.
(We understand that the assistant commissioner is actually taking the fall for the continuing drumbeat of negative online publicity that has accompanied the process of closing Fernald. The only satisfaction we can take from that is at least it shows the administration is paying a political price for the debacle of a process that the Fernald closure has been.)
We would note that the SEIU contends that while service coordinators work in several EOHHS agencies, it is only DDS that is cutting those coordinator positions.
Oh well, those DDS service coordinators should feel nothing but gratitude for the compassion this administration has shown for them. In her staff update, Howe calls the service coordinators “the heart and soul of our agency.”
is forcing the most medically fragile, intellectually disabled people into a fragmented “community” system with its oversight systems – the service coordinators, disabled. The Disabled Persons Protection Commission, which was never fully funded, is a shell of its former self. I predict that eventually, the head vendor of DDS (Elin Howe, former VP of Columbia Group) will have the vendors providing their own oversight. It’s the old “fox minding the hen house trick.” Unless she’s stopped. Hopefully, this lawsuit is a good first step. The second step happens in November.
Of course our support systems are crumbling around us. Take your head out of the sand. Senator Pinup has personally taken on the cause of cutting government spending, including depriving states like ours the hundreds of millions of dollars that were promised us.
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p>To mix metaphors, wake up and smell the coffee! What this state needs is more revenues. Now. Raise taxes. Protect jobs. Now.
It’s not quite true. This Administration made its plans to decimate oversight of its operations by the service coordinators on June 8, two and a half weeks before Senator Pinups vote. So either Governor Patrick had a crystal ball, or this is just another indication of the man’s priorities. And if you want to clearly see what Governor Patrick’s (and the Legislature’s) priorities are…take a look at Amber’s piece called the Great Massachusetts Giveaway Called the Tax-Expenditure Budget:
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p>http://vps28478.inmotionhosting.com/~bluema24/d…
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p>Now that’s what I call “Uneffinbelievable.”
The task of service coordinators is a difficult job. A little easier in a place like Fernald where most services are centralized. Out in the community it more difficult because the population and services are scattered in different locations. So while the governor/commissioner are forcing the people with the greatest needs into the already overloaded community system, he is making cuts to that system. PS closing Fernald is just another cut to community based care system since thousands living in the community use the facility.
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p>I also hope the next person to get the boot is the Commissioner.
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p>This commissioner is a disgrace. She has been so busy trying to put somekind of positive spin on these closures (THERE IS NOTHING POSITIVE ABOUT THEM)she has been derelict in her other duties. First and foremost, protecting the people its her job to protect and fighting to maintain funding for those people.
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p>The budget has been cut (despite all the crapola that Fernald closure was going to be the savior of the budget)so we know she was unsuccessful on that task.
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p>Now a large portion of the “heart and soul of our agency” are getting the boot. Yet she still carries on about providing “equal or better” care to residents she is throwing out of Fernald.
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p>Disgusting.