COFAR blog

The Department of Developmental Services has provided us with almost completely redacted documents concerning a calculation it made that there were approximately 91 vacancies in its state-operated group homes as of June of 2023.

That month in 2023 was apparently the one and only time that DDS ever attempted to determine the number of vacancies in the homes. The Department, however, is either unable or does not want to explain how or even why the vacancy rate was calculated on that one occasion.

In July of this year, we reported that DDS had finally clarified, after we had filed an appeal for records from the Department, that it doesn’t track the number of vacancies in its state-operated group home network.

However, in September 2023, the Department stated that it could, in fact, provide us with the number of vacancies as of that one date. The vacancies were within a network of group homes that then had close to 1,000 residents. (As of this past June, the total number of residents had dropped to 986.)

About two months later in 2023, DDS stated that the number of 91 vacancies was only “an approximation” that had been determined in a one-time “exercise” that DDS employees had participated in. Since then, “no similar exercises have been conducted,” a DDS attorney stated.

That explanation, however, only appeared to raise the question why DDS attempted on one occasion, but never again, to determine the number of vacancies in its group-home network.

Even though thousands of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are waiting for residential placements and other services from DDS, why would the Department not have a continuing interest in knowing whether its state-run network has available beds for them?

Based on those questions, we filed a new Public Records Request with DDS on July 12 of this year, seeking all documents relating to the Department’s exercise, which had resulted in identifying the approximate number of state-operated group home vacancies as of June 30, 2023.

We hoped some of those documents might shed light on why the exercise had been conducted.

In a response on August 9, DDS provided records that it described as “documents that DDS employees relied upon to identify the approximate number of state-operated group home vacancies as of June 30, 2023.”

However, the documents appeared to provide no information regarding the nature or scope of the exercise or the reasons for conducting it.

One of the documents provided, labeled “Southeastern Residential Services — 6/15/23 — Temporary Moves,” was filled with text boxes containing information that had been entirely blacked out. There was no readable information in the document other than the words “Medical Respite” below one of the redacted text boxes.  I’ve reproduced that document here:

DDS document provided to us concerning group home vacancy calculation

Another heavily redacted document, labeled “Metro Residential Services Caseload List July 2023,” appeared to contain only the names and positions of DDS employees.

Another document, referred to as ‘Central West Region Vacancy Tracker,’ appeared to be an undated spreadsheet with columns containing the names and phone numbers of DDS employees.

There were approximately 70 listings of the word “vacancy” in a separate column in the spreadsheet that appeared to contain the redacted names of residents of group homes in that region. There was no apparent summary information in that or any of the other documents.

In particular, there was no reference in any of the documents to the total of 91 vacancies that the exercise reportedly identified. None of the documents contained any identifiable connection to the exercise or the subject of the exercise — the number of vacancies in the group homes.

As a result, we appealed on August 26 to the state supervisor of public records, asking that DDS be ordered to clarify whether it did or did not possess records that specifically described the nature or scope of the one-time, vacancy-determination exercise.

On September 6, the supervisor of public records stated that in a phone call between a staff attorney of the Public Records Division and an attorney for DDS that same day, “the Department confirmed that it provided all records responsive to (our) request.”

The public records supervisor added that, “The Department further confirmed that the exercise in question was an informal exercise that provided an estimate for vacancies, and that the records provided to (COFAR) were used in determining the approximate numbers.”

The supervisor, in other words, was satisfied with the Department’s response. Because the exercise was “informal,” whatever that means, DDS was apparently not required to maintain or provide any documents that might shed any light on it. Our appeal was denied.

As we’ve said before, the fact that the administration does not even track the vacancy rate in state-operated group homes is evidence, in our view, that the administration does not view state-run residential services as a viable option for waiting clients. DDS, in fact, is letting the state-run system die by attrition.

In light of all of that, we think it would be helpful to know why the Department decided at one point a few years ago to conduct an informal exercise to determine the approximate vacancy rate as of one particular date.

Was it because a number of DDS officials have been telling families, as we have heard, that there are no vacancies in state-operated group homes, and the Department had no idea if that information was correct? If so, the exercise showed that there were, in fact, vacancies in the residences.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that the fact that the exercise indicated the existence of an approximately 10 percent vacancy rate in the state-run homes has persuaded the Department to admit more people to those residences.

So why did DDS conduct that one-time exercise? It appears we may never know the answer to that question.