Session 2003 Budget and Taxes Business Environment Higher Education K-12 Education Health and Welfare Public Safety Stadium Transportation Photos A fragile support network The Walkers Your Voice Join the conversation with other MPR listeners in the News Forum.

	E-mail this page			Print this page

Capitol protest cites budget cuts in services to disabled
by Laura McCallum, Minnesota Public Radio
February 26, 2003

Bruce Nelson, the executive director of the Association of Residential Resources of Minnesota, used an egg to illustrate the plight of the disabled. (MPR Photo/Laura McCallum)

Hundreds of people with disabilities and their caregivers were at the Capitol on Wednesday to protest proposed budget cuts. They say Gov. Pawlenty's budget plan would cut services for people with disabilities by four percent. They say the state already cut community-based programs for people with disabilities by $63 million earlier this year.

St. Paul, Minn. — About 700 people came to the Capitol to urge lawmakers to protect funding for people with disabilities. They presented raw, cracked eggs to legislators and the governor's office, to symbolize what they say is the fragile support network for people with disabilities.

Jean Walker of Moorhead brought her son Steven, who has multiple disabilities. She says five days before he was scheduled to move into a group home earlier this month, the county told her Steven wouldn't receive enough support services to live there. Walker says Steven will graduate from high school in May, and the county will provide fewer than 28 hours of care per week for him...

	The Walkers

"My husband works 45 hours a week, I work 35 hours a week, plus we have to get to our job. Which means one of us gets to resign to take care of him, because as you can see, he needs care 24-7," she said.

People who provide in-home care for people with disabilities say they're being hit with a double whammy. They say the state Department of Human Services cut funding for community-based programs serving about 15,000 people with disabilities by $63 million earlier this year. That process was called "rebasing." And the governor's budget would cut those programs another four percent over the next two years.

Bruce Nelson is executive director of the Association of Residential Resources of Minnesota, which represents service providers who work with about 36,000 people with disabilities. He says providers will be forced to cut staff, which puts vulnerable people at risk.

"Well, if rebasing was the only poison we had to take, and we realize that everybody's got to share in the pain, we could maybe manage around that. And some of the nice things -- the quality of life things -- that people are able to enjoy, would probably go away. But when you combine that with the cuts in the governor's budget, now programs will close, now people, really, their health and safety will be at risk," according to Nelson.

Human Services commissioner Kevin Goodno defends the governor's budget. Goodno, who advocated for services for people with disabilities while in the Legislature, says cuts affecting those services aren't as deep as those in other health and human services programs.

We certainly don't want people moving into institutions, and that certainly would be contrary to our intent. - Kevin Goodno, human services commissioner

"The decisions that were made were not easy decisions. The intent as we move forward was to make sure that we had the safety net in place and that we still had the safety net for people, and also that we continued our commitment to community-based services and in-home services as much as possible. We certainly don't want people moving into institutions, and that certainly would be contrary to our intent," Goodno said.

Goodno points out that service providers got rate increases of a combined 16 percent over the past four years when the state had a budget surplus. He acknowledges that the combination of the governor's budget and his department's rebasing are distressing to people with disabilities. But he says his department had to rein in "out-of-control spending growth."

"The costs of the programs, the provider costs to provide the services, was increasing at a level that far exceeded the cost-of-living adjustments and inflation. And so we needed to get a handle on that," he said.

Goodno's department didn't seek legislative approval for the change. It used its administrative authority to recalculate the amount of money it gives counties to fund home-based care. As the governor's budget moves through the Legislature, people with disabilities and service providers say they'll keep coming back to the Capitol to try to prevent the proposed cuts.

News Headlines

Related Subjects