DiPalma: $184 M DD Wage Settlement In CT Should Guide RI Talks

DiPalma Photo by Anne Peters

By Gina Macris

Will higher wages for workers who help persons with developmental disabilities in neighboring Connecticut and Massachusetts force increased pay for similar workers in Rhode Island?

State Sen. Louis DiPalma says they should; particularly a two-year contract settled just a few days ago in Connecticut that gives frontline workers $16.50 an hour in the fiscal year beginning July 1 and $17.25 in July, 2022.

While leaders of private agencies in Rhode Island that provide services to persons with disabilities have tentatively agreed to a $15.75 reimbursement rate for entry-level caregivers, they did so reluctantly, saying that it’s not competitive enough to help them stabilize or expand their workforce.

And it’s not yet known whether that figure is acceptable to Chief Judge John J. McConnell, Jr. of the U.S. District Court, who has involved himself in workforce issues because they are connected to the state’s compliance with a 2014 civil rights decree requiring the integration of adults with developmental disabilities in their communities.

DiPalma, a strong advocate for those with disabilities and an influential legislator, said in a telephone interview with Developmental Disability News that the $15.75 hourly reimbursement rate the private providers tentatively accepted from the state is “necessary but not sufficient.”

Connecticut’s eleventh-hour settlement with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) averted a strike of 2,100 group home workers who had planned to walk out June 4.

In addition to the wage hikes, the agreement provides 3-percent raises to those already making more than entry-level pay, as well as a a pool of $30 million over the next two years for enhanced medical and retirement benefits. The entire package will cost a total of $184.1 million, according to a statement from the Connecticut state policy office and department of developmental disability services.

In Massachusetts, personal care attendants who work with adults facing intellectual challenges, as well as with others who need daily assistance, make $16.10 an hour, according to the website of their union, 1199 SEIU East, a different branch of the same overall organization representing the group home workers in Connecticut. Rhode Island routinely loses some of its best developmental disability professionals to Massachusetts, and DiPalma said Connecticut is “not that far.”

The strike threat in Connecticut was “a means to an end,” DiPalma said.

“Never mind how they got there,” he said. The state wouldn’t have put up the $184.1 million in the two-year package unless it valued the workers, DiPalma said.

For the most part, the employees of some three dozen private providers of developmental disability services in Rhode Island are not unionized. Wage talks have involved their employers and state officials and revolve around reimbursement rates to the private agencies, not the wages themselves.

Because of differences among agencies in employee-related overhead costs, like workers’ compensation, the actual wages are not exactly the same as the reimbursement rates negotiated between employers and the state, according to Tina Spears, executive director of the largest provider trade association, the Community Provider Network of Rhode Island (CPNRI)

The most recent CPNRI calculations indicate that the average starting pay for direct care workers is $13.18, but there are other reports that some agencies pay $13.40 or a little higher.

Those organizations paying a little more have transferred revenue from other programs to subsidize services for adults with developmental disabilities, in a pitch to be a as competitive as they can in the midst of a huge worker shortage, DiPalma said. Not all the agencies have multiple sources of income, he said.

Judge McConnell has heard testimony that low pay and high turnover has adversely impacted the workforce that the state relies on to comply with the 2014 civil rights consent decree, which requires adults with developmental disabilities to be integrated in their communities. The state is nearly 1100 workers short of the number it needs to guide community-based services, according to a consultant’s report.

McConnell has ordered the state to set starting wages at $20 by 2024, with any interim raises being competitive with direct care pay in neighboring states.

McConnell has a private conference scheduled today, June 8 with lawyers in the consent decree case.

Union Raises Strike Possibility At Northern RI DD Provider Over Submarket Wages; No Deadline Set

By Gina Macris

Unionized workers supporting about 250 adults with developmental disabilities have indicated they may strike at Seven Hills Rhode Island over wages that lag significantly below those in neighboring states. No deadline has been set for a walkout.

The possibility of a strike by about 180 members of the United Nurses and Allied Professionals (UNAP) was disclosed in a letter that the management of Seven Hills sent to families Jan. 15. Talks between labor and management continue, according to a source with knowledge of the negotiations.

An official of the state Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals (BHDDH) indicated that the union must give a 10-day notice of any walkout.

Kevin Savage, Associate Director for Quality Management, said Jan.18 that “BHDDH is in close contact with Seven Hills administration, who have put together a plan to ensure coverage of necessary services in the event that the union gives them a 10-day notice that a walk out will occur.”

He said BHDDH contracts with Seven Hills to support about 250 persons with developmental disabilities in a variety of residential settings, as well as supported employment services and non-work daytime activities.

The Jan. 15 letter to families, signed by Seven Hills’ vice president, Cliff R. Cabral, said that a work stoppage could force the agency to suspend or reduce “several program offerings.”

“Our day services program will be limited to 24 residential participants,” Cabral said. Seven Hills has 76 residential clients, according to the latest data compiled by the state.

Efforts to reach Cabral or a UNAP spokesperson were not immediately successful.

Average entry-level wages for direct care workers in Rhode Island are $11.36 an hour, according to the most recent figure released by the Community Provider Network of Rhode Island, a trade association representing two thirds of the private providers of developmental disability services in the state.

Governor Gina Raimondo has proposed an incremental raise – estimated by BHDDH at an average of about 44 cents an hour – effective July 1.

In Connecticut, entry-level direct care workers must be paid a minimum of $14.75 houirly. The Connecticut legislature approved the raises last May, even though it had not yet acted on the state budget, to avert a strike that had been planned at that time by the Service Employees’ International Union (SEIU). The wage hikes became effective three weeks ago, on Jan. 1.

SEIU also has negotiated a $15 hourly minimum wage with Massachusetts for direct care workers in that state that went into effect July 1, 2018.

In the letter to families, Cabral said that “Seven Hills Rhode Island stands with our employees and will continue to advocate on their behalf for the living wage they deserve.”

He said Rhode Island’s system of care for adults with developmental disabilities still has not recovered from the General Assembly’s $24 million reduction in services in 2011. (Final figures on actual spending put the total over $26 million.)

Despite repeated and concerted advocacy, “our state representatives continue to place funding for individuals with developmental disabilities low on their priority list,”he said. The General Assembly’s inaction has significantly “compromised the sustainability of the current system,” which, Cabral said, has been weakened by below-market compensation and high staff turnover.

“Organizations such as ours have taken several painful measures throughout the past decade in an effort to ensure our fiscal sustainability, including liquidating assets and significantly reducing our administrative resources,” Cabral wrote.

While it has adhered to the “highest delivery standards possible,” Seven Hills cannot sustain its efforts indefinitely, Cabral said. He called on UNAP to join with management “to more productively direct our collective efforts toward lobbying for a substantial investment in this year’s state budget in order to adequately address the needs of those with developmental disabilities while ensuring a living wage for the remarkable individuals who support them.”

Seven Hills Rhode Island offers a variety of services for children, families and adults, with offices in Cranston and Woonsocket. Services for adults with developmental disabilities are based in Woonsocket, covering northern Rhode Island.

One In Six DD Jobs in RI Goes Unfilled; Raises Would Ease Crisis and Improve Service Quality

image by capitol tv 

Kevin Nerney of the Rhode Island Developmental Disabilities Council, left, and Maureen Gaynor, second from right, share pleasantries just before their testimony before the House Finance Committee on Feb. 8. Looking on are Gaynor's support worker, Melanie Monti, and Emmanuel Falck of the Service Employees International Union State Council.  Image by RI Capitol TV. 

By Gina Macris

Raising the pay of Rhode Islanders who serve adults with developmental disabilities is not only about helping these poverty-level workers pay their bills, according to testimony before the House Finance Committee Feb. 8.

The proposed raises also will reduce staff turnover and, in turn, improve the quality of life for some of the state’s most vulnerable citizens, Donna Martin, executive director of the Community Provider Network of Rhode Island (CPNRI), told the legislators. 

Kerri Zanchi, the new director of the Division of Developmental Disabilities, agrees with Martin’s assessment. Zanchi says the pay hike is not only an “investment in the direct service professional, but an investment in our community" and in high quality services.  

She estimates that the wage increase will amount to an average of 42 cents an hour, and says that provider agencies are now experiencing a staff turnover rate of about 33 percent.

Carol Dorros, the mother of a 21-year-old man with behavioral issues and other complex problems, knows firsthand the value of support staff retention. When her son was still in high school and receiving some adult services from a private agency, his support worker changed four times during a single academic year. As a result, he made “no progress” from September to June, Dorros said.

 Maureen Gaynor rolled up to the speakers’ table in a power chair and used a computerized voice to speak the text she had written with a “headstick,” a pointer attached to a band around her head.

These people deserve higher pay, Gaynor said, explaining that support staff sometimes must help with the most intimate care, such as bathing, dressing and using the toilet.

And she reminded the legislators that she would not have been able to attend the hearing without an aide willing to drive her to the State House and get her to the basement hearing room.

After she spoke, Kevin Nerney of the Rhode Island Developmental Disabilities Council reinforced her remarks:  “When you help someone eat, drink or bathe, you need to have a really good relationship with that person. We’re not talking about folding shirts at the Gap or flipping burgers at McDonald's,” said Nerney.

At AccessPoint RI, a service provider, the starting salary is $10 an hour, or $22,000 a year, said the agency’s executive director, Tom Kane. The average pay was $10.82 an hour until the current fiscal year, when the General Assembly set aside $5 million for raises for developmental disability workers – the first pay increases since 2006, Kane said.

The added funding resulted in a 36-cent hourly increase, raising the average to $11.18, according to calculations made by service providers and others.

When Kane reviewed the the roster of employees at the time his agency processed the raises last fall, he said he was heartbroken to find a 30-year employee who was to receive a total of $13.10, with the pay bump.

Kane and others indicated they believe that a “15 in 5” campaign to raise the pay of direct care workers to $15 in five years (by July 1, 2021), is simply not enough.

Kane alluded to a drive launched by State Sen. Louis DiPalma, D-Middletown, last fall when he asked Governor Raimondo to include a raise for direct care workers in her budget proposal for the next fiscal year.. While she has done so, her $6.2 million set-aside for wages is about $$600,000 shy of what DiPalma requested.

Kane said raises should not only be based on a percentage increase.

 “A four or five percent increase on an insufficient wage is an insufficient increase,” he said.

If the minimum wage increases to $10.50 an hour, as Governor Raimondo has proposed, “and we give 5 percent” raises, Kane said, “we’re paying minimum wage again.”

Kane took issue with figures presented by Linda Haley of the House Fiscal Staff that the raises in the current budget also bumped up pay for supervisory personnel.

He said the raises all went to direct care workers, (as stipulated in current state budget.)  Some agencies, including AccessPoint, used other funding sources to provide raises or bonuses to supervisory employees.

At AccessPoint, Kane said, front-line supervisors spend half their time doing direct care anyway.

“It is incredibly important that this bill passes, hopefully with more money in it,” to support not only those providing direct care but people who perform other important tasks, like writing clients’ state-mandated individual support plans, which are akin to road maps for services that are specific to each client. Most of these employees “have not had a raise in 11 years,” he said. “I don’t know why they stay.”

Emmanuel Falck of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) State Council represents 270 workers at the Arc of Blackstone Valley. One of them, a 52- year-old woman with 20 years’ experience in the field, used to be able to make ends meet by working 60 to 65 hours a week, he said.

But after an 18-month bout with cancer, the most she can now work is 20 hours a week. And the last vacation she had was three days in Washington, D.C., in 2000, Falck said.

He said the proposed 42-cent increase to the hourly rate would be much appreciated, but the state needs to move faster to raise workers’ pay to a living wage.

“I urge this committee to bump it up as fast as possible,” he said, proposing a $15 hourly wage by 2019 instead of 2021. As it is, direct support workers living in Rhode Island will be able to cross the state line to neighboring Massachusetts and do the same work for $15 an hour on July 1, 2018, Falck said.

Donna Martin, the CPNRI director, said that developmental disability service providers face a “tremendous crisis” in competing for the same pool of workers who serve elderly clients, thanks to a growing number of aging baby-boomers.

On average, the 27 providers belonging to CPNRI cannot fill one in six job openings, creating a vacancy rate of about 16 percent, she said. During exit interviews, workers say that they love their jobs but can’t feed their families with what they are paid, according to Martin.

As a result of the vacancies, employers are forced to spend money on overtime that they would rather put into worker pay and training, Martin said.

“I appreciate your sensitivity to the struggles of our staff,” Martin told the finance committee members.  “They are where the rubber meets the road when it comes to quality.”

Chris Semonelli of Middletown, the father of a 14-year-old girl with autism, put some historical context around the discussion of the wage proposal.

From 2006 through 2011, the budget for developmental disability services was reduced 20 percent, Semonelli said, quoting a profile of the system written by the Sherlock Center on Disabilities at Rhode Island College in 2013. And the services are not designed with an eye toward results. In the current design, more money gives more of the same service, he said.

That said, Semonelli said he strongly supports Governor Raimondo’s proposed wage increase in the next budget, as well as the “15 in 5” campaign. The governor’s plan for the next fiscal year “is a start,” said Semonelli, who also is co-director of an advocacy group called Friends of the Disabled on Aquidneck Island.

Although Wednesday’s hearing sounded like a budget discussion, it focused only on Article 23 – one of 24 chapters in the overall fiscal package Raimondo has submitted to the General Assembly.

The provision would require a one-time increase in the base pay of direct care workers, “in an amount to be determined by the appropriations process” and also require the Office of Management and Budget to perform an audit to ensure that the raises go only to those workers.