By Gina Macris

Governor Gina Raimondo plans to privatize the state-run group home system in the next budget, cutting 204 fulltime positions from the state payroll during the 2021 fiscal year, which begins July 1.

The privatization is one of many cost-cutting moves Raimondo has proposed to address an overall $200 million structural deficit in a $10.2 billion spending plan, which she submitted to the General Assembly Jan. 16.

The budget emphasizes investments in continued economic growth, education, affordable housing and healthcare; hitting the same notes Raimondo covered in her State of the State address two days earlier.

Within the Division of Developmental Disabilities, the privatization would directly affect about 125 residents of homes run by the state. Details about the transition were not immediately available.

The residents of the state-run group homes represent a small fraction of the 3,835 adults with intellectual challenges who receive state-funded services. Most of these adults are supported by private-sector workers, who would receive a modest 10-cent hourly raise in Raimondo’s budget proposal.

Supervisors in the private sector also would receive proportionate pay increases, budget officials said during a press briefing several hours before the Governor submitted her plan to the legislature.

Few other details were immediately available about changes in funding for the Division of Developmental Disabilities, part of the Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals (BHDDH.)

Raimondo would put a total of $487.1 million into BHDDH in the next fiscal year, an increase of more than $20 million from the current funding level.

The private system of developmental disability services, now budgeted at $268.7 million, is projected to spend about $4 million less than that total by June 30, according to a budget briefing book. Funding for the fiscal year beginning July 1 would be $290.3 million, but not all of it would go to direct services.