Thousands of CT home health aides might be getting big pay raise. It’s a fast-growing field.

Gov. Ned Lamont and Connecticut’s largest health care workers union announced a tentative three-year contract this week that would boost minimum wages for home health aides by 26% to $23 per hour by the 2025-26 fiscal year.

But the package, which also would provide longevity bonuses, expand paid time off and reduce health insurance costs for an industry long seeking a major compensation adjustment, puts the General Assembly in a quandary.

Legislators, who now must decide whether to ratify the package, face a similar request for funding from the private, nonprofit social services industry. But there also are restraints limiting state finances, despite projections for another healthy budget surplus.

“This historic agreement shows our commitment to address the worker shortages experienced by some of Connecticut’s most vulnerable Medicaid participants,” Lamont said. “It will ensure consumers’ preference to receive care in their own home and community for as long as possible and helps delay or avoid more costly institutional care.”

The tentative contract would affect roughly 11,900 personal care assistants serving about 6,000 low-income clients served by Medicaid, a federal program run in cooperation with states. Though these workers are paid through a fiscal intermediary, Connecticut covers their compensation through a combination of state and federal funds.

About 80% of these PCAs earn $18.25 per hour, the starting wage under the outgoing contract, according to SEIU 1199NE, New England Health Care Employees Union. Others with significant experience, or if serving a client with developmental disabilities, earn a slightly higher rate.

The deal announced Tuesday would boost that entry-level wage to $20 per hour within 45 days after ratification by the General Assembly. Hourly pay then would increase to $20.50 on July 1, $21.50 on Jan. 1, 2025, $22 on July 1, 2025 and $23 on Jan. 1, 2026.

“That’s an important step up for thousands of Connecticut home care workers, who are majority Black, Latina, and white working-class women,” said Rob Baril, president of SEIU 1199NE. “They provide love and care at home for our elderly and disabled, but they keep struggling to cover their family’s essential needs.”

The proposed contract also would:

• Provide PCAs who work two or more years for the same employer with a longevity bonus of $400 or $800, depending on hours worked per week.

• Mandate time-and-a-half pay for work performed on Juneteenth and Labor Day. Home health aides already receive holiday pay for working on New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

• Increase from 40 hours to 50 hours the paid time off PCAs can accrue annually.

• Expand health insurance premium assistance from 6% to 7% of annual wages.

• Dedicate $750,000 for working training and development.

“This is a significant change that will make a big difference in my life,” said Cynthia Johnson, a personal care assistant from New Haven. “I love giving care to my consumers. And I know that there are many people out there seeking support to live independently at home. With this new contract, both me and my consumers can get peace of mind.”

Union members overwhelmingly ratified the contract last week, union spokesman Pedro Zayas said.

The deal now heads to the legislature’s Appropriations Committee for review, and many members of that panel have complained PCA’s wages are too close to the state minimum wage, which hit $15.69 per hour on Jan. 1.

Home care is a fast-growing field. There were about 38,000 home health and personal care aides serving clients across all income groups in Connecticut in 2021, up from nearly 21,000 in 2011.

But that’s not the only human services occupation with poor compensation that lawmakers say has become increasingly difficult to fill, particularly since the coronavirus first struck Connecticut in March 2020.

The hundreds of private community-based agencies that deliver the bulk of state sponsored social services have struggled for decades with annual turnover rates that approach or exceed 20%.

These agencies treat clients with intellectual disabilities and people struggling with mental health and addiction issues and assist incarcerated individuals preparing to re-enter society.

The CT Community Nonprofit Alliance estimates that the industry loses about $480 million annually because state payments haven’t fully kept pace with inflation since 2007.

It asked Lamont and the legislature to boost its annual payments by $186 million in the fiscal year that begins July 1. Lamont did not recommend any rate adjustment for nonprofits for the upcoming fiscal year.

“We appreciate that the governor recognizes the value of human service providers, and we hope that a final budget agreement increases funding to nonprofit providers and their employees, who also need a raise,” Gian-Carl Casa, president and CEO of the nonprofit alliance, said Tuesday.

According to Lamont’s budget office, the proposed contract for home health aides will cost $10.9 million this fiscal year, $25.9 million in 2024-25 and $43.9 million in 2025-26.

Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, co-chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, said only that she has asked the legislature’s nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis to review the proposed agreement. Her fellow co-chair, Rep. Toni E. Walker, D-New Haven, could not be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon.

But the committee, which will propose its own spending plan for the next fiscal year by April 5, has little flexibility under existing state budget rules, even though the administration estimates finances will close this fiscal year on June 30 nearly $650 million in the black.

The preliminary $26 billion budget legislators adopted last June for the 2024-25 fiscal year already exceeds the spending cap — a fiscal guardrail that tries to keep spending in line with the growth in personal income and inflation — by an estimated $30 million, according to Lamont’s budget office.

Keith M. Phaneuf is a reporter for The Connecticut Mirror (https://ctmirror.org/ ). Copyright 2024 © The Connecticut Mirror.