COFAR blog

In signing a $58 billion state budget this week for the newly begun Fiscal Year 2025, Governor Maura Healey has cut $401,000 in proposed funding for state-operated group homes.

That was one of two cuts that Healey made in Department of Developmental Services (DDS) line items in the budget plan sent to her by the Legislature. The governor also cut $1 million in proposed funding for the Autism Division.

Left untouched by Healey was $1.69 billion in funding for DDS’s separate corporate provider-run group home line item, and $390 million in a separate reserve fund for the providers.

Healey’s cut in proposed funding for the state-operated group homes still allows for a 4% increase in the funding of that line item over the previous fiscal year. But that increase will now be $2.4 million less than the increase the governor herself had proposed when she submitted her budget to the Legislature in January.

The Legislature itself had cut Healey’s proposed funding of the state-operated group homes by $2 million. Healey has now reduced that amount by an additional $401,385.

It’s unclear what the impact will be of the lowered funding increase for the state-run homes and whether it might result in cuts in staffing. It is also unclear why Healey targeted just the state-operated group homes and the Autism Division for cuts out of DDS’s total $2.9 billion budget.

Healey stated with regard to the state-operated group home line item cut that she was reducing it to $330.7 million, which is “the amount projected to be necessary.” In signing the budget, she said that, “Due to operational efficiencies, savings will be achieved (in state-operated group homes) without impacting services to clients.”

Healey’s statement, however, did not specify what those operational efficiencies were.

We have long raised concerns that a succession of administrations has been allowing the state-operated group home system to die by attrition.

We reported yesterday, in fact, that not only do there appear to be vacancies in the state-run group home system, but DDS has now acknowledged that it doesn’t keep track of those vacancies. All of these things appear to be signs that the administration does not view state-run residential services as a viable option for thousands of waiting clients.

Healey has reportedly cited “fiscal prudence” as the reason for making a total of $317 million in cuts in the Fiscal 2025 budget prior to signing it.  At the same time, however, her budget increases spending overall by 3.1% over last year’s budget.

The Boston Globe reported that Healey also cut $192 million from the MassHealth managed care program, “due, in part, to ‘anticipated utilization,’ or how much the state expects people to make use of the services.”