Autism Action Network supports the call by a coalition of developmental disability service providers and workers for an 8.5% increase, including a $4000 per year base pay increase, for the direct service professionals (DSP) who provide care in group homes and other residential facilities. The Governor is offering 2.5% with no assurances that any of that will go to DSP wages. Even if the 8.5% is provided, it is still less than the inflation rate.
Please take action to support these vital but woefully under-paid workers who are critical to the lives of people with many people with autism and developmental disabilities.
Use the panel to the right to send messages to the Governor, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins, and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (the three key people) in forming the budget, as well as your State Senator and Assemblymember
Please get on the phone and call the Albany leadership and your State Senator, and Assemblymember and ask them to provide a budget that assures that workers at the very least do not get pay cuts.
Governor Kathy Hochul, (518) 474-8390
Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins, (518) 455-2585
Speaker of the Assembly Cark Heastie, (518) 455-3791
Hochul’s $227 billion budget is the largest ever and exceeds this year’s budget by $5 billion. Albany is supposed to finish the budget by tomorrow, but insiders say meeting the Constitutionally set deadline is unlikely.
Decades of under investment has resulted in inadequate capacity for housing and services for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Waiting lists for group homes and other housing for the disabled, in many parts of the state, are measured now in decades. Years of the 10%+ annual growth in the number of children with autism and other disabilities, that overwhelmed special education programs for the past 20 years, has now collided with an adult services program completely inadequate to deal with the tidal wave of disabled adults. Thousands of people are waiting in hospitals, nursing homes, and psychiatric centers with thousands more living with their aging caregivers.
An overworked and shrinking workforce is forcing group home closings and service elimination statewide. Seven group homes were closed recently because staff could not be found at the wages offered. Reports show a 35% annual turnover rate in the direct service provider workforce at the non-profit organizations that provide most residential care in New York, along with a vacancy rate of 17% for full-time positions, and 21% for part-time positions. The reasons for the staffing problems are obvious; DSP workers make $15.79 per hour on average, barely above minimum wage.
The budget does include $50 million for raises for DSPs at the State-run facilities, but none for the private facilities that provide 80% of services.
The budget contains other serious flaws that must be rectified:
- Repeals the previously agreed-to process for preserving fiscal intermediaries needed for home care.
- As usual, the budget provides no new money for Early Intervention programs. Compensation rates for the professionals who provide services for children under three-years suspected of developmental disabilities have received one raise since the beginning of the millennium. Some counties cannot provide services because no one will work for the rates offered by the State.
- An audit by State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli released last month showed the majority of children in New York did not receive the Early Intervention services they were entitled to by law.
- Provides only an additional $15 million to develop housing for people with developmental disabilities.
- Cuts funding for 4201 schools that serve students who are deaf, blind and disabled.
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