COFAR blog

Under the state Legislature’s less-than-fully-democratic state budget process, our budget amendments to preserve the Wrentham and Hogan Intermediate Care Facilities (ICFs) were rejected last week in the House of Representatives without either a vote or debate on any of them.

It was frustrating because our amendments had garnered bipartisan support before each was stripped of its language by the House leadership. There were 18 cosponsors of our primary amendment, including 12 Democrats and 6 Republicans. There were 16 cosponsors of each of two other amendments that had been filed on our behalf.

The good news is the battle to preserve the ICFs now shifts to the state Senate, which is scheduled to debate its version of the Fiscal Year 2027 state budget starting the week of May 18. The bad news is, it might be difficult to find a senator to file our primary amendment, which would affirm a federally sanctioned right to residential placements in ICFs such as Wrentham and Hogan.

Last week, the leadership in the House assigned our amendments to a large “consolidated amendment,” which included dozens of amendments involving “public health and mental health and disability services.” However, the leadership then stripped the language in our amendments from the consolidated amendment.

Under the consolidated budget amendment process in the House, the House leadership places the vast majority of the thousands of individual amendments filed by House members each year in a small number of consolidated amendments. The leadership then decides what language from those individual amendments it wants to preserve, and allows up or down votes on the consolidated measures. Those consolidated amendments are always approved.

While individual legislators can lobby the leadership for approval of their amendments, it is ultimately the leadership’s decision whether to allow individual votes on the amendments or simply strip the language from them.

Our primary amendment, which had been filed Representative Marcus Vaughn, would ensure a choice and right to ICF care for those who have been found to be eligible for it. That amendment and our two related amendments were filed on our behalf by Vaughn, whose district includes Wrentham.

Among the cosponsors of each of the amendments were House Minority Leader Bradley Jones; and Democratic Representatives Lisa Field, a member of the Mass. Nurses Association, and Sally Kerans, who represents the Town of Danvers in which the Hogan Regional Center is located.

We think the reason our amendments were rejected has to do with the likely opposition to them by the Department of Developmental Services (DDS).  As we have reported, the administration rarely allows admissions to either Wrentham or Hogan, and has been allowing those facilities to die by attrition. Yet these facilities are Medicaid certified centers that provide residential care, which the late federal District Court Judge Joseph Tauro described as “second to none anywhere in the world.”

While it seems unlikely that we will gain passage this year of our budget language asserting a right to ICF care – at least partly due to the lack of true democracy in the legislative process – our longer-term hope is to lay the groundwork for passage of the language next year. But time is running out for Wrentham and Hogan, given that their residential populations, or census, have been steadily declining.

We are urging our members to email their state senators as soon as possible, and ask them to agree to file an amendment to establish a right to ICF care for those who are eligible for that level of care. We will follow up with every senator who expresses a willingness to file such an amendment.

You can find your state senator here.

In sum, it is a troubling statement about the Massachusetts legislative process that a small number of legislative leaders can foreclose the opportunity for separate votes and debate on measures that have significant support in the chambers. It reduces the input of the rank and file membership of the Legislature, and, even more importantly, of the public whom those legislators represent.

In our amendments, we are not seeking more funding for programs — we are seeking just the affirmation of a common sense right that is already established in federal law. We hope the Legislature will ultimately support that right, and the administration will finally see the matter in that light as well.

Cosponsors in the house of our amendments

We would like to thank Representative Marcus Vaughn, the principal sponsor of our amendments, and the following cosponsors in the House of our primary amendment, and, in most cases, our additional amendments. They are Representatives:

Bradley H. Jones, Jr.  R,  Reading, House minority leader

Lisa Field, D, Taunton

John J. Marsi, R, Worcester

Sally P. Kerans,  D, Danvers

David T. Vieira, R, Bourne

Lindsay N. Sabadosa, D, Northampton

Michael J. Soter  R, Uxbridge

Natalie M. Higgins, D, Leominster

Amy Mah Sangiolo,  D, Newton

James K. Hawkins,  D, Attleboro

Norman J. Orrall,  R, Berkley

Kate Donaghue,  D, Northboro

Adam J. Scanlon, D, North Attleboro

David Allen Robertson, D, Tewksbury

Michael S. Chaisson, R, Foxboro

Paul McMurtry, D, Dedham

Greg Schwartz, D, Newton

David Henry Argosky LeBoeuf, D, Worcester

An additional House member, Representative Simon Cataldo, D, Carlisle, cosponsored one of our amendments, which would require DDS to report to the Legislature on steps taken to inform families of choices for care, including ICF residential care.