Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                     Contact:           Margaret Compton

May 19, 2005                                                                                      353-0636

 

 

               

 

Campaign Time Comes Early for MR/DD Program

 

                More than 100 people gathered at The Carousel Center, 1112 Gallia Street, Portsmouth, Thursday evening to help the Scioto County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities (MR/DD) kick off its 2005 levy campaign. Seizing an opportunity to present their cause three months early, the MR/DD Board has taken steps to put two property tax issues on the August 2 special election ballot.

                Brenda Benson, the MR/DD Board’s newly appointed superintendent addressed an audience that included interested citizens, MR/DD employees and a large group of parents and family members of people served by MR/DD programs. Benson explained first what would happen if the August effort fails.  “We’ll go on again in November, but if we the voters turn us down in 2005, by June of 2006 there won’t be anything left to save.”

                 “We are committed to one more year of Vern Riffe School.  The local school superintendents are helping us keep the school program open in the 2005-2006 school year.  Plus we couldn’t do that to the children – send them off to other schools mid-year.”  Benson explained that the local schools are paying for transportation now and plan to help pay the excess costs of educating their special-needs kids next school year,  “But they don’t want to do that more than one year,” she said.

                “If we fail this year, then we’ll have to close everything else to keep the school and meet our legal obligations.”  Benson said. “We’ll have to close all the other programs.  We are only required by law to have a superintendent, a business manager, a Medicaid officer, service coordination and an incident investigator.  And we can contract those positions out. We’ll be nothing but a contracting agency.  No direct services.

                 “It’s up to the voters to decide what services they want to give people with developmental disabilities in this county,” said Benson.  “We’ve made every cut we could to keep all the programs running. Right now we offer infant intervention, preschool, school, adult day services, supported employment, supported living, transportation, and service coordination even though the number of service hours has been reduced.”  But of those services, only service coordination is required by law. If the agency doesn’t receive any new tax support in 2006, “the voters will have spoken,” Benson said.  “They will have told us they don’t want to help people with disabilities.”  

                If the levies are approved, however, Benson said the MR/DD program intends to maintain their current programs and even restore some lost services. She’s careful to state that this is contingent upon avoiding serious unforeseen circumstances.

                The programs were hit with one such circumstance earlier this year, when the federal government announced in December 2004 that it was no longer going to pay for the Community Alternative Funding System (CAFS) after June 30, 2005.  Already dealing with decreases in state and federal funds and projecting $1 million deficit at the end of 2005, the end of CAFS meant another loss of between $800,000 and $1 million for the MR/DD program. 

                “We had to find a way to reduce costs by another $1 million between January and March of this year because of  CAFS,” explained Benson.  “And we had just laid off 12 people. We had eliminated 26 jobs, and had developed guidelines to cut services.”  The layoffs and job abolishments came as a result of the voters rejecting the two MR/DD levy replacement issues on the November 2005 ballot. 

                In response to the CAFS funding loss, the next wave of service reductions began March 21, 2005. “We cut our programs back 5 hours per week, meaning we shortened the school day and the adult day services by 45 minutes.  And our case management and supported living offices are now only open 4 days a week.”  Also, the summer program for school-aged children was eliminated and a number of staff members who have left for other jobs since the lay offs have not been replaced. “We’ve got some bus routes where we’ve been using only substitute employees for a couple of years now. We couldn’t afford to replace them.  We’re also down a behavior support specialist, a teacher and an aide. We haven’t even tried to find a substitute for the behavior specialist, but we have to keep a teacher and aide in the classroom.”

                “The employees have been great,” said Benson.  “The bus drivers are holding off on a grievance about those vacant positions. Most employees absorbed the two health insurance premium hikes since November.  And for a family, that’s an additional $125 they’re paying every month on top of what they were already paying.” 

                All the administrators and 78 others on the staff have taken pay cuts.  “The 5 hour per week reduction in services means a reduction in staff hours, which translates into a cut in pay of 12.5 percent for a forty hour a week employee. Of course, not all employees work 40 hours a week, but that’s a huge cut,” Benson said.  “I know some people think we are paid too much to begin with, but if you look at the years of experience, the levels of education and training, and statewide averages on similar jobs, that really is not the case.”    Several employees have left because of they couldn’t afford the pay cuts and several more are looking for other opportunities.  “We’re losing good people,” Benson lamented, “but they have to do what’s right for their families.”

                The one of the two ballot issues in August will be different than what was voted on in November.  Two old continuing levies, one approved for 0.7 mill in 1981 and another passed in 1989 for 2.6 mills are being combined again into one ballot issue for 3.3 mills.  The request for these is for them to be replaced.  That means that their value would be updated to the current property tax valuation.  Currently, these levies generate funds based on the property values the year they were passed.  If this issue fails, these levies will continue to generate revenue for the MR/DD programs just at their old rate.

                The second issue is a request for 1 new additional mill.  “It’s one mill and it’s only for 6 years,” Benson explained.  “We heard a lot of people say that we lost the last election because the levies were continuing levies.  This is our answer for that.  In six years, the voters can weigh in again.”  Benson believes there are good reasons for continuing levies, too.  “There will always be people with disabilities.  New babies are born every day and accidents and illnesses occur every day. A disability can be considered a developmental disability if it happens before a person is 21 years of age.  A lot can happen to a child in those first 21 years.”

                The Scioto County MR/DD program serves 439 individuals of all ages with disabilities. The REACH early childhood program, a component of the Board, serves an additional 900 families, expectant mothers and babies age birth through three.

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