COFAR blog

Corporate providers to the Department of Developmental Services (DDS) and other human services agencies will be required to direct up to $173 million in state funding to boost wages of their direct-care workers, under the Fiscal Year 2023 state budget.

This past Sunday, 17 days into the new fiscal year, a state legslative House-Senate conference committee approved a budget plan that includes mixed results for our budget priorities. But it appears the approval of the direct-care wage provision is a big win.

On Monday, the Legislature gave formal approval to the overall $52.7 billion state budget, and sent it to Governor Baker for his signature.

Assuming that the governor does not veto it, the direct-care wage provision will require any corporate human services provider receiving state funding under a special reserve account to direct at least 75% of that funding to compensation for direct-care and front-line staff.

The problems of inadequate direct-care wages and resulting staffing shortages have reached critical levels in the state’s human services system; and, up to now, the administration and Legislature appear to have done little to address them.

The conference committee approved $230 million in funding for the provider reserve account for Fiscal 2023 — the same amount proposed by Governor Baker. The 75% funding provision would appear to require that $173 million in the reserve account be directed by human services providers to boost direct-care wages.

The passage of the funding provision was hailed by SEIU Local 509, a human services employee union that had been pushing for it, along with COFAR. But it remains unclear how much the requirement will raise direct-care wages, and how the 75% fundng provision will be tracked and enforced. We have called for a mnimum direct-care wage of $25 per hour.

On Twitter, Peter MacKinnon, president of Local 509, termed the enactment of the 75% wage provsion “a powerful statement of support for these essential workers and a significant first step in repairng the workforce crisis plaguing the human services industry.”

Additional reserve account funding proposed

The House earlier this week approved a separate bill (H.5034) that would establish a separate $100 million reserve fund based on federal COVID relief funding for the corporate providers, and would require that 90% of that reserve account be directed to direct-care staff.

The Senate has proposed funding that reserve account at $250 million, but has not yet acted on the legislation.

Conference committee approves flawed state commission budget language

The Fiscal 2023 budget also includes what we consider a flawed proposal to establish a state commission to study the history of institutional care in Massachusetts of persons with developmental disabilities and mental illness.

We had urged the conference committee not to approve what appeared to be a last-minute Senate budget amendment to establish the commission because it is not clear to us that the proposed commission will acknowledge major improvements since the 1980s in care and conditions in the state’s developmental centers or Intermediate Care Facilities (ICFs).

We support the establishment of a commission to study the full history of the state facilities. But our concern is that proponents of further deinstitutionalizaton and privatization in the DDS system could use the commission, as established in the budget, to call for the closures of the Wrentham Developmental Center and Hogan Regional Center, and potentally other state-run residential facilities.

Nominal increases approved in funding for ICFs and state-operated group homes

The budget conference committee also approved nominal funding increases for state-operated group homes and the Wrentham and Hogan ICFs.

Both the House and Sente essentially adopted the governor’s budget numbers for those line items. The ICFs and state-operated group homes will receive increases in the current year of between 5% and 6% from the just-completed fiscal year.

However, in inflation-adjusted terms, these budget increases amount to cuts in funding for both the ICFs and state-operated group homes. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the inflation rate in New England was 7.9% as of June.

We will keep fighting for adequate funding for state-run services in Massachusetts. And we will continue to bring you news of the efforts at long last to address the direct-care wage problem in the state.