Rose, advocates raise concern over Pritzker's funding proposal for disability services

Feb. 27—SPRINGFIELD — While Gov. J.B. Pritzker says his budget proposal for fiscal 2025 includes "record funding" for human services, critics feel that the plan does not do enough for workers who serve individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

"The governor's budget once again fails to fully fund what is actually necessary to do right by our developmentally disabled friends and family here in the state of Illinois," said state Sen. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet.

Following the release of Pritzker's proposed budget on Wednesday, the Illinois Association of Rehabilitation Facilities issued a statement expressing concern that the proposal does not include any increases in wage rates for direct-support professionals.

"Disability service providers throughout Illinois continue to face serious pressures and obstacles to attracting DSP workers to provide services, including additional increases in the minimum wage this year and next to $15 an hour on January 1, 2025," association officials said. "Regrettably, the proposed budget's lack of a DSP wage rate increase represents a significant step backwards in our ability to provide competitive wages and benefits for frontline staff."

The Illinois Department of Human Services currently reimburses providers at rates of $19.50 per hour statewide and $22.43 per hour in the Chicago metro area, said Rachel Otwell, its director of communications.

"The proposed budget maintains current DSP wages and includes $100 million to annualize the $2.50-an-hour wage increase effective Jan. 1," she said.

IARF President and CEO Joshua Evans said it is his agency's understanding that this proposed $100 million would preserve the current wage rates, which increased in January, but not increase them further in FY25.

According to a summary from the governor's office, the proposed budget includes over $2.4 billion for services for individuals with developmental disabilities in support of the Ligas consent decree and represents "a nearly $116 million general funds increase for these services."

Pritzker's proposal would also preserve over 2 million statewide service hours for direct-support professionals at group homes. Advocates and lawmakers had previously opposed a proposal by the Pritzker administration that would have cut 2.5 million service hours for those employees starting on April 1, according to Rose. The governor's office later announced that implementation of the changes would be paused until the end of the current fiscal year.

IARF officials said that they appreciate Pritzker's decision not to include the proposed cuts to hours in his plan. However, they remain concerned that the administration is "simultaneously seeking to exit the Ligas consent decree and proposing to increase state revenues" while also not proposing to raise wage rates.

According to the Illinois Department of Human Services, the consent decree was approved in 2011 after the Ligas v. Hamos class-action lawsuit was filed in 2005 on behalf of individuals with developmental disabilities who sought "placement in community-based settings and receipt of community-based services."

"The tenets of the decree will assist the DDD (Division of Developmental Disabilities) in expanding its community-based system to meet the growing demand for those services, while continuing to honor an individual's choice in deciding on the types of services and settings he or she prefers in order to live a personally fulfilling and productive life," the IDHS website states.

According to the budget summary, Pritzker's proposal includes a little over $30 million for continued compliance with the decree, including $13.6 million to annualize FY24 placements and $16.5 million for 630 new placements.

The state has filed a motion to vacate the Ligas consent decree, and this motion is currently being briefed before the court, Otwell said.

"We do not see a path to exiting the consent decree, of which the state has been out of compliance since 2017, without minimally achieving full funding of the Guidehouse rate study, which indicated higher wages and benefits for front-line staff as its top priority," IARF officials said.

The association added that it will work alongside state Rep. Michelle Mussman, D-Springfield, and state Sen. Karina Villa, D-Springfield, to pursue a $3-an-hour increase in wages for direct-support professionals.

"Our concern with the introduced budget is that if there isn't an increased wage rate that we are going to lose ground on purchasing power for recruitment and retention of DSPs effective next January, because right now, we're currently 139 percent of the statewide minimum wage," Evans said. "If there's no increase, if this proposed budget goes forward, that brings us back down to 130 percent because the statewide minimum wage is going up."

Statewide advocacy coalition They Deserve More has called for the same increase, stating that the Guidehouse study recommended that the state's wage reimbursement for direct-support professionals should be at least 150 percent of minimum wage.

Additionally, Rose claimed the state is currently $500 million behind in terms of funds it should have spent since the study was issued, and the proposed budget will increase that gap to at least $630 million.

He said that his figures represent what should have been spent if the state was fully funding the study's recommendations from the start.

On the other hand, Otwell said, "The State has funded roughly $475 million in Guidehouse Rate Study recommendations as of Jan. 1, 2024. The total funding estimate for implementation of all rate study recommendations is $750 million. IDHS created a timeline for implementation and, to date, has met and exceeded the timeline expectations, with three years left to implement all recommendations."

She added that Pritzker has continuously introduced and passed budgets with record investments in home- and community-based providers, and wage reimbursements have risen by over 60 percent under his administration.

In discussing next steps, Rose said that there will be budget hearings over the next six weeks. Then, in May, the General Assembly is expected pass a budget on to the governor for him to sign.