(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blog)
During a conference call on Wednesday with advocates for the developmentally disabled, Department of Developmental Services Commissioner Elin Howe didn’t have much good news about the potential impact of Governor Baker’s proposed Fiscal Year 2016 budget.
The budget is bad news for DDS accounts, particularly state-operated services.
“These are huge and difficult reductions,” Howe said.
Baker is dealing, of course, with a projected budget shortfall in the coming fiscal year, and it looks as though people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are among those who will pay a price for that shortfall. Howe said DDS is assuming departmental layoffs will not be necessary if the Legislature accepts Baker’s early retirement proposal for state workers. If that doesn’t happen, measures such as layoffs may be needed, she said.
Just about every DDS account is being funded lower than what DDS had asked for. Howe said the governor’s budget required a total of $27 million in reductions from DDS funding requests, but DDS has been able to reduce the hit by $8 million by using some federal revenues as an offset to the total reductions.
As usual, state-operated services may be taking the brunt of the reductions. Howe noted that Baker was proposing a $2.6 million reduction from the DDS request in the state-operated group homes line item. Under Baker’s budget, the line item would be increased by $5.1 million, from current-year spending (from $209.6 million to $214.7 million). But that amount is below what DDS considers necessary to maintain current services.
Exactly what the state-run group home line item reduction means is unclear. Howe said DDS is not projecting “reductions in services to people,” but rather there will be “changes in staffing.” Among other things, DDS has been working to reduce the use of overtime in state-operated group homes, she said.
In January, we sent a letter to Kristen Lepore, Baker’s new secretary of administration and finance, asking that the new administration consider making the funding of state-operated care for the developmentally disabled a priority. For too long, as we noted, state government has been divesting itself of its responsibility to provide care for the most vulnerable of its citizens, and has failed to adequately monitor and control the handover of human services to state-funded corporate providers.
Baker’s first budget does not appear to address that situation.
In addition to the shortfall in funding for state-operated care, Howe said the state-run developmental centers line item would be funded under the governor’s budget at $2 million less than what DDS was requesting. This account would be cut from the level of spending in the current fiscal year as well, under Baker’s budget.
In addition, DDS service coordinators, Howe said, were being funded at a level $1.8 million below what DDS had requested. The DDS administrative line item, which funds the service coordinators, would be increased under Baker’s budget, but not by enough to maintain current services.
Corporate provider-run care does not come through unscathed in the governor’s budget, but the overall imbalance in funding between state and provider-operated care will remain.
Funding to DDS corporate residential providers rose past the $1 billion mark for the first time in the current fiscal year. In fiscal 2014, then Governor Patrick and the Legislature increased the provider line item by more than $140 million –or more than 16 percent—in FY 2015 dollars. At the same time, both the former governor’s and the legislative budgets either cut or provided much more meager increases for most other DDS line items.
The provider residential account subsequently received a supplemental budget increase in the current fiscal year of $44.7 million, even as both Baker and his predecessor, Patrick, were cutting spending across the board to deal with a projected current-year budget deficit.
Baker has proposed another $33.6 million increase in the provider residential line item for fiscal 2016, but DDS and the providers apparently wanted $4 million more than that.
Among the other DDS line items:
- Baker has proposed an increase in funding for the day program line item that is $9.7 million lower than what DDS wanted. The line item would be increased by $2.8 million under Baker’s budget proposal.
- Respite and Family Supports would be funded at a level $5 million below DDS’s request. Under Baker’s budget, the line item would be increased by $7.4 million, but this line item has been continually underfunded in recent years. It was cut in the current year by $2.5 million in light of the projected budget deficit.
- The transportation line item would receive a $3.5 million increase under Baker’s budget, but that increase was $3 million below what DDS wanted.
- The Autism and Turning 22 accounts would be level-funded, which amounts to a cut when adjusted for inflation.
- A long-time revenue account of $150,000 from sales from the dairy barn at the Templeton Developmental Center would be eliminated. The money has been used for program needs at the Center.
The fiscal 2016 budget is now before the Legislature, specifically the House Ways and Means Committee. We understand that this is a fiscally difficult time for all state programs. When it comes to the DDS budget, though, this may be a good time to rethink some longtime funding priorities. We hope key legislators will do just that in coming months.
I came back looking to get more info on the budget but instead I got the MBTA and Film Tax Credit talk. It’s very frustrating.
My first reaction is that it’s going to be worse, Baker is cutting 4500 jobs and if the early retirement doesn’t give him his numbers he’s going to do layoffs. With the open jobs not being filled and this , it feels like this is his 5000 job cut he promised during the last election. These are DDS and other areas who will be losing senior skilled staff without replacement. we all know these are areas that have already been hit hard with budget cuts already.
Waiting on Mass Budget and HCFA for additional information at this point.
…is not the same as a cut.
You mention a $5 million increase, for example, and call it a cut because they ask for more. You call level funding a cut because it is not increased for inflation, but how much IS inflation, etc.
The departing governor is leaving a billion dollar shortfall. After promising too much, he was pretty ruthless in his 9-c cuts to human services. Isn’t having a budget figure that is realistic better than phoney hope? As an administator I would rather have a real figure than an unreliable promise.
requested amounts. I do believe that level-funding amounts to a cut if inflation is running anywhere above 0%.
Btw, I’m not sure how realistic Baker’s budget is. As the Mass. Budget and Policy Center notes, it relies on more than $600 million in one-time solutions. Relying on an approach like that will land us right back in the same budget-shortfall situation next year, with potentially no one-time fixes left to fill the hole.
We all want and need and ask for full funding and when we “only” get half or a “only” a substantial increase it is good to say thank you for a good step forward as you lobby the Legislature for the rest.
And you forgot to mention you all were telling Legislature you were supporting new revenues. Or maybe your board has decided you should not openly support new taxes at the same time you are lobbing for increases.
I don’t see anything wrong with openly supporting new taxes at the same time one is lobbying for increases. In fact, if more officials did more of that, we might not be in the absurdly unsustainable fiscal crisis that now faces us.
Porcupine observed that a significant structural deficit existed at the end of Governor Patrick’s tenure. She failed to note the courageous attempt to correct that structural deficit that Mr. Patrick made, and that Mr. DeLeo contemptuously dismissed.
This state needs to raise tax revenues. This state needs to collect those increased tax revenues from its wealthiest citizens. This state needs to NOT raise taxes on whatever is left of our middle- and working-class citizens. This state needs to NOT fund its needs by plundering the most desperate among us with the Lottery and casino gambling. Our refusal to raise taxes on our wealthiest citizens is the cause of the structural deficit that faces us.
A realistic and rational discussion of tax policy would accept that reality, and would focus on how best to change it. Instead, what we hear from both Mr. DeLeo and Mr. Baker, is “No new taxes”.
I have also urged them to stand up and work with leadership to develop a progressive tax package and pledged to get 10 opinion makers in the district to communicate their support for new progressive revenues.
If you can that’s great, and frankly if you don’t want to, or already have, just tell us. No need for details.
I’m pretty sure she gets this, and I’ll reach out to her this week to provide support and encouragement. She (and Ms. Jehlen) are well aware of my feelings towards Mr. DeLeo. I read of Ms. Provost’s vote against ending term limits in that context.
Ward 5 precinct 2 of Somerville is not, in my view, where the organizing needs to be done. I’m happy to do it, but we already have a plethora of progressive riches here.
I’d like to understand how we get folks like scott12mass in areas like Charlton on board this train.
And it helps when a Legislator can n tell leadership they have received tons of mail supporting a controversial issue — like taxes. I had a back and forth a couple of weeks ago on FaceBook with Senator Eldridge, a champion of fixing the T with increasing revenues. He remarked he had only gotten 12 calls from constituents on fixing the T. I said really? and his staff person came on to confirm.
Try it — get another 9 people to send Rep Provost and Senator Jehlen a note saying they support new progressive taxes.
n/t
n/m
is a system of
is a system of runaway spending, where it is not clear where the dollars are being spent and how and why. Any responsible fiscal plan must include checks and balances and oversight and accountability. As this pertains to disability services in Massachusetts, there are those who misuse and abuse the system. Calling for higher taxes is not the answer, as throwing more money at the system is not the solution, and would only perpetuate the problem, especially when no one is looking at the parts and the cause of the problems.
isn’t the lack of funding, it’s where the money is being spent. As the post notes, the Patrick administration and the Legislature drastically increased the amount of money going into privatized services in the past year. In doing so, the administration and Legislature starved state-run services and other DDS accounts. I’m not saying we don’t need more revenues for other things, but for DDS accounts, the money appears to be there. It has just been disproportionately allocated to corporate vendors and has led to an imbalance in the system.
gotcha.
You may have missed the second-to-last sentence.
the money appears to be there.
increase in funding over the previous year. If just half that increase went to other DDS line items, I think those line items would be in pretty good shape. We’re not saying, by the way, that the corporate providers should not get an increase. We’d just like to see more of a balance.
….I know how hard COFAR works to protect the residential options for severely disabled people. Peace.
is a cut. A cut in expenditures, but almost definitely a cut in services.