A sea of blue, over 700 people show support for serving those with developmental disabilities in the community!
Blue scarves with the dark blue “Develop Abilities” button on them adorned the necks of hundreds of self advocates, their care providers, family members and other advocates with a message to legislators not to cut community services for individuals with developmental disabilities. Over 700 people signed in for the Independent Living Day Rally. Rally signs included statements in support of community services, closing state institutions, giving supported living providers fair wages and even Scooby Doo said the budget cuts are scary! We have hundreds of photos from the event which we are posting online through the Arc of Washington web site.
The revenue forecast is out and is as bad as expected.
On March 19th the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council released their revenue forecast for Washington State. Last month their preliminary forecast put the state in an $8 billion dollar budget deficit, this week’s report brings the deficit to around $9 billion. There was some hopeful news from the Council, there are positive indicators in housing starts, used car prices, bank profits and retail sales were even up a little over the last two months. Regardless of these positive signs, it is too early to tell if it will continue.
Sen. Rodney Tom, one of the Senate budget-writers, said he thinks a tax package will go to voters. He isn’t sure it would get support right now, but when people start to see the big cuts in the budgets being released this week, that might change. He said some programs will be cut entirely. We have heard the original plan was to release the Senate budget first, wait one day, then release the House budget. Senator Tom told reporters the Senate has an agreement with the House now to wait on them to release the budget. This should take place sometime early this week.
What programs for developmental disabilities are in jeopardy?
Any program which is funded only with state dollars is at high risk. This includes the Individual and Family Services program (family support), those receiving state-only employment supports, state dollars that go through counties for programs such as Parent to Parent, Parent Coalitions, Self Advocacy groups and information and education dollars such as what are used for conference stipends, etc. We are also hearing that supported living providers may be looking at a rate cut of 3% - 5%.
As far as the closure of institutions goes, it still seems legislators intend to close at least one of the five in our state. Those leaving an institution are provided many of their community services through the federal Money Follows the Person grant. The important thing for advocates is to make clear to legislators that when closing an institution, it is important to ensure continuing stability of the community system.
The federal stimulus package contained more of an increase than was expected, but legislators are not obligated to use the money in the programs that generated it. Our programs generated an estimated $198 million in federal stimulus dollars. We have put together a one page document detailing this with a request to keep about 10% of the money generated by our programs for specific services.
What can you do to help?
Self-advocates around the state, with their families and providers, are putting together short, one minute videos which are being posted on You Tube, as individuals with developmental disabilities try to share how they felt about having lived in a state institution and how important it is to them to now live in the community. These short videos will be shared with legislators in a variety of ways. To participate in a video or to get see the ones already made, email us at Diana@arcwa.org
The Arc of Washington State has an Action Network at http://capwiz.com/arcwa/state/main/?state=WA that you can sign up for that makes it very easy for you to let your legislators know what is most important to you. When bills or budget items need emails or phone calls targeted to your legislator you will receive an email with basic information about the issues and a suggested email you can revise or just send that will go directly to your legislator from you with just the click of a button.
You can also participate in this process by phone, email and personal visits to ask legislators to make sure that bills you are most concerned about get pulled to the Floor for a vote.
The Olympia Insider video podcast is a concise preview and review of what’s happening with developmental disability advocacy in Washington’s capitol city. Go to http://www.arcwapodcast.org/ to see the newest episode.
I hope to see you at Advocacy Day as change is made by those who show up!
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