By Gina Macris

In a midnight session June 8, the Rhode Island House Finance Committee added nearly $18 million to Governor Gina Raimondo’s original budget proposal for developmental disabilities in the fiscal year beginning July 1.

Both the House and Senate leadership and the governor herself supported increased funding for developmental disabilities after better-than-expected revenue projections were announced May 10.

The additional funding, all Medicaid money, includes about $8.8 million in state revenue and the remainder from federal funds, according to documents prepared by the House fiscal staff. The Finance Committee’s budget raised Raimondo’s bottom line for developmental disabilities from $250.8 million to $271.4 million. The state’s share would be $126.3 million.

Raimondo’s original budget would not have allowed the state to continue to implement a 2014 federal consent decree designed to correct violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act, according to an independent court monitor, who had been prepared to make recommendations to the judge in the case to ensure adequate funding.

The overall $9.55 billion statewide package passed the House Finance Committee, mostly along party lines without debate, on a vote of 15-3. Opposed were Republicans Patricia Morgan, a gubernatorial candidate representing West Warwick, Warwick, and Coventry,  Antonio Giarrusso, representing East Greenwich and West Greenwich, and Robert Quattrocchi, representing Scituate and Cranston.

The measure is slated to go before the full house June 15, and Chairman Marvin Abney-D-Newport, said there would be plenty of debate on the House floor.

 As it now stands, the budget maintains the level of developmental disability services at current reimbursement rates to private providers. The Finance Committee did not reverse a $3 million cut to the state-run group home system imposed by the Governor, and it does not improve wages for direct care workers, as has been the practice in the last three budgets.

Direct care workers in developmental disability services make significantly less than their counterparts in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Providers say they struggle to recruit, train and keep qualified employees, who often go to neighboring states or leave the field entirely. 

In a briefing with reporters before the Finance Committee convened, House Speaker Nicholas A. Mattiello said the budget did not go further in addressing needs of the Division of Developmental Disabilities because of the necessity to restore funding in many human service areas.

“We were thinking of all segments of society and balanced it as well as we can,” he said. “We took care of our economy, and we took care of our citizens.”

The Finance Committee added $15.7 million payments for hospitals and another $17.2 million to the Department of Children, Youth and Families for services for children and teenagers in state care. Some of the added DCYF funding would provide for older teens who choose to receive services until age 21 – an option that has been unavailable in recent years.

The House Finance Committee also granted a 10 percent rate hike to in-home caregivers of the elderly and disabled. Most of the individuals served by those workers do not have developmental disabilities, according to Sharon Reynolds Ferland, the House Fiscal Advisor. But Mattiello said there are significant savings to the state in keeping those individuals out of nursing homes.

The revised budget also reversed Raimondo’s plan to require Medicaid patients to shoulder co-pays for health care, although the original proposal was not designed to affect individuals with disabilities.

Just as the Finance Committee increased Medicaid reimbursement rates to hospitals to make them competitive with Massachusetts and Connecticut, Mattiello said, he believes wages for direct care workers probably should be raised to keep them in Rhode Island.

“Yes, I do believe we have to look at those rates,” he said in response to a question about the wages. He said direct care wages “should probably be increased but there’s so much resources, and when you run out, you run out.”

Mattiello held out the hope that direct care worker wages in developmental disabilities would be revisited next year.

He said he wants to continue to increase resources for developmental disabilities, “but that increase is incremental and slower than we would like.”

“We’re continuing to work on improving our economy so we can continue to work on the needs of society and balance those needs,” Mattiello said.

While the House leadership usually drives the budget, the Senate will weigh in after the package clears the lower chamber.