SWAN: BUDGET ADVOCACY

  • SUPPORT IMMEDIATE FUNDING FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

The Governor’s proposed budget is a great step toward reversing a decade of chronic underfunding.  New Yorkers with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD), and their families across the state appreciate Governor Hochul’s commitment to increase immediate funding of essential IDD services in the 2022-23 budget cycle.  New York’s IDD service system is collapsing due to years of chronic underfunding, budget cuts, diverted resources and low wages.  The proposed, immediate increase in funding is critically needed; however, New York must also prioritize long-term funding for people with IDD and the nonprofit workforce that supports them.  Services for people with IDD must be funded to remain in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

 

  • ADDRESS THE EMERGENCY DISABILITY WORKFORCE SHORTAGE

Direct Support Professionals (DSPs) are now leaving the field in record numbers, as are other front line workers in the field. There are dangerously high staff vacancy rates and work force gaps within service delivery systems, creating instability, insecurity and high risk for our loved ones.  Programs are closing as families across the state live in fear and isolation, without critically needed services and with little hope for the future.  New York has a unique opportunity to reverse this dangerous and destructive trend by investing heavily in the IDD nonprofit workforce now and ensuring continued, ongoing investment in the future.  This reoccurring investment is desperately needed to retain and rebuild a strong workforce.

 

  • INSTITUTE A MULTI-YEAR INVESTMENT IN THE DIRECT CARE WORKFORCE

Policy makers must commit to a long term nonprofit workforce investment plan to stabilize the field of service provision for people with IDD.  This workforce investment is the only way to ensure the future, safety and well-being of some of the most vulnerable citizens of our State, citizens who include the newly diagnosed as well as aging individuals and their aging caregivers, requiring an investment in resources for a growing, unmet need.  There are tens of thousands of New Yorkers with IDD whose needs require residential services, some having waited more than a decade, yet their needs are still unmet.  It is imperative that we ensure fair access to a diverse continuum of inclusive services for people with IDD to meet a wide range of need. This cannot be accomplished without New York’s honorable nonprofit workforce and compensation commensurate with the enormous responsibility they bear.

 

  • INVEST IN NEW YORK’S ECONOMIC RECOVERY AND SYSTEM OF CARE

New York is not alone.  Systems of care for the disabled across the nation face similar challenges. New York’s disabilities workforce is an essential statewide economic driver that contributes more than $2.2 billion in State and Federal taxes. Long-term investment in the disabilities workforce will only increase this contribution while supporting our communities and the health and well-being of hundreds of thousands of our citizens and families.  New York’s disabilities field generates an economic impact of $14.3 billion in communities across the state.  By investing now and in the future, New York once again has the opportunity to demonstrate great national leadership in providing supports and services to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

February 2022

  • WHAT WE ARE ASKING FOR:
  • Implement Governor Hochul’s Proposals for People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) in the Final 2022-23 Budget:

 

  • Enact the 5.4% Cost of Living increase for nonprofit IDD service providers
  • Support the $3,000 DSP retention bonuses
  • Make the $3,000 DSP retention bonuses permanent and amend the hourly rate criteria to capture DSPs working part-time (15 hours or more) to full-time (30 hours or more)
  • Add a $5,000 personal income tax credit for DSP households earning under $100,000 (S.7643/A.9200)
  • Support statewide direct care staff workforce initiatives to professionalize and create a pipeline, including DSP professional job code, recruitment, credentialing  and career ladder programs
  • Amend Nurses Across NYS proposal to specify OPWDD and OMH as eligible workplaces
  • Provide 11% tuition rate increase for nonprofit, specialized preschools and private schools serving students with IDD, and allow them to keep it by discontinuing rate reconciliation
  • Support $4.5 million investment to support intensive behavioral services and expand crisis intervention services
  • Support the $50 million Nonprofit Infrastructure Capital Investment Program
  • Amend Statewide Healthcare Transformation Program IV to include IDD community based partners
  • Enact a requirement for OPWDD to clearly provide families with information about their placement on the State’s registry for residential placement
  • Long-Term Solutions:
  • Incrementally raise reoccurring DSP base wages over time to improve long-term recruitment and retention.
  • Support statutory reform to alleviate systemic regulatory burden
  • Provide a detailed plan to expand and preserve a diverse, person centered continuum of sustainable IDD supports and services to address unmet need, including a continuum of residential and employment supports and services.

The State-Wide Family Advocacy Network of New York State is an independent coalition of like-minded organizations from around New York State; comprised of the families, guardians, and friends of people with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. Our mission is to educate and inform policy makers, the media and the public on issues impacting our disabled children and loved ones. SWAN is an independent, all-volunteer organization that receives no government or service provider money; its activities are entirely self-supported. We are committed to a constructive, cooperative effort with all parties wishing to improve the lives of our loved ones, the citizens with disabilities of New York State.

2-22-22-SWAN-Budget-Advocacy-Messaging-FINAL-1

Residential Needs – 10/16

SWAN – Residential Ask PDF

 
Residential Needs HOUSING: Over 11,000 individuals with Intellectual and Developmental (IDD) Disabilities who need residential supports are currently on OPWDD’s Residential Request List:

  • 46% of Caregivers report being over the age of 60
  • 80% of Individuals placed in certified settings (from 7/2015-7/2016) were in CRISIS!

Their transition was not Person-Centered!

  • 53% of households have only one caregiver
  • 61% of caregivers report that they are experiencing health related issues that make it difficult to care for their loved one

OPWDD’s 2016-17 available supply of certified residential opportunities (vacancies + new capacity) is projected to be 1,421 – helping less than 43% of those living with aging caregivers.

NO Residential Development:

The $120 Million from 2016-17 budget dedicated to supports to meet the needs of people living at home and transitioning from the school system (Community Hab, Day Hab, Employment) is not available for certified housing.

Only $10 Million of the $120 Million dedicated in the budget STATEWIDE is allocated to residential supports for people who are not Priority 1.

$10 million = approximately $2 million/region = approximately 12 people per region could be supported in certified housing. But the DDROs were instructed to look at non-certified options, subsidies and less expensive options to serve more (which means higher functioning) people. Individuals requiring medication, nursing, or behavior support NEED care in a certified setting per OPWDD regulation.

The lack of funding is unfair and discriminatory to those with more needs.

ASK:

$100 million in NEW spending (State Share) dedicated to NEW Certified Residential Development

$200 million (State and Federal share) in NEW annual spending= $40 million/region = approx. 1,333 statewide, or 267 people per region will be supported in certified housing development.

 

 

SWAN NY

Capital Region : ENYDDA , Patrick Curran/Brad Pivar,   ENYDDA@gmail.com  

Western New YorkDDAWNY Family Committee,  Kathy Bunce/Barb Delong ,  ddawnyfamilycommittee@gmail.com              

Hudson Valley Area:  GROW, Barbara Masur/Will Mayerik,  info@grow-ny.org                                                                            

New York City:  NYC FAIR ,  Jim Karpe/Meri Krassner/Elly Rufer,   nycfair@gmail.com

Support of Direct Support Professionals – 10/16

SWAN – DSP wage Final Oct 2016

We add our support to the many voices calling for appropriate funding and wage increases in the 2017-18 NYS Budget for the dedicated Direct Support Professionals who work with our loved ones, people with IDD.

In these transformational times NYS wants to provide a wide range of Individualized and Community based services. Are we going to develop a large number of certified residences or simply concentrate on alternative residential supports? Can we successfully transition our sheltered workshop workforce to competitive employment? Will Self-Direction redefine the service system? Regardless of the answers to these or any of the myriad other issues that we are facing one truth stands out. If we do not have a stable, professional workforce none of these other questions matter.

The bFair2DirectCare coalition highlights the vacancy rate and the turnover that providers are dealing with. Though these statistics may be disconcerting, for our loved ones staff vacancies and turnover are personal. Vacancies means broken promises of services that are approved but not delivered. Vacancies mean activities have to be cancelled. Turnover isn’t just losing staff. Turnover is losing friends.

We ask an enormous amount from DSPs, from accompanying individuals in the community, administering medication at the right times and in the right doses, following eating protocols, assisting in activities of daily living for many different people, day after day after day. We also ask that DSPs understand and are responsive to people’s emotional needs. Direct Support Professionals are trained to deal with challenging behaviors and non-verbal people. Everything they do must be recorded and checked. DSPs are there when we can’t be and they are family when family members are not around. This is not a job for just anyone, it takes dedication and caring. Mostly, though, being a DSP should not and cannot continue to be a minimum wage job.

Ten years ago average DSP wages in the not-for-profit agencies were approximately 50% higher than minimum wage. Today those same agencies are struggling to meet the NYS minimum wage mandates. bFairto2Directcare is asking for an increase in reimbursement of $45Million each year for six years in order to reach a ‘living wage’ that is 18% higher than minimum wage in NYC and 24% higher than minimum wage in Upstate NY. While this may achieve a greater level of stability than we are currently experiencing, it falls very short of recognizing DSPs as the valued and skilled workers that they are. Of course this is not an issue for DSPs in the NYS workforce. Pointing out the disparity between the state and not-for-profit workers is rarely even part of the discussion. Still, for those of us lying awake at night wondering how our children will be cared for as we watch services degrade across the state, it’s difficult to understand why this huge difference continues to exist.

Finally, we encourage the administration to address these issues today. Six years is an awfully long time to achieve such a modest outcome. For those of us in our sixties and seventies who still provide care for our children with Developmental Disabilities, six years seems like a lifetime and may very well prove to be one.

SWAN NY

Capital Region : ENYDDA , Patrick Curran/Brad Pivar,   ENYDDA@gmail.com  

Western New YorkDDAWNY Family Committee,  Kathy Bunce/Barb Delong ,  ddawnyfamilycommittee@gmail.com              

Hudson Valley Area:  GROW, Barbara Masur/Will Mayerik,  info@grow-ny.org                                                                            

New York City:  NYC FAIR ,  Jim Karpe/Meri Krassner/Elly Rufer,   nycfair@gmail.com

 

10/24/2016