By
Ed Sealover, Rocky
Mountain News
Published December 27, 2008
at 12:05 a.m.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/dec/27/economy-shreds-hopes-of-disabled/
The flush
of optimism the developmentally disabled community felt
last summer with the signing of legislation to give them
long-awaited relief and opportunities is fading fast.
The 10
bills Gov. Bill Ritter signed June 5 were meant to
provide jobs for the disabled, increase oversight of
care and reduce by as many as 700 the number of people
on a years-long waiting list for service.
The
waiting list is being pared slowly, but the economy's
collapse is wiping out nearly all of the other gains.
None of
the job programs is under way, an online registry of
abusive or neglectful caregivers isn't close to being
ready and legislation seen as providing the next big
steps forward for the disabled won't be introduced.
Lagging
tax revenues are forcing almost every aspect of state
government to scale back. But advocates for the
developmentally disabled say they fear for that
community if hard-earned gains are rolled back.
"These
are people who are very vulnerable. . . . They're not
able to take care of themselves," said Roger Jensen, CEO
of Starpoint, a nonprofit working with the disabled in
Fremont, Custer and Chaffee counties. "We fought too
hard to get these new (opportunities), and to see them
go down the drain because of a budget-cutting process is
unconscionable to us."
Roughly
12,000 developmentally disabled Coloradans remain on
waiting lists to get state services, and about 4,200 of
them need intensive or round-the- clock care. The
average wait is eight years, and some individuals can't
get help until their parent or caregiver dies, said
Jeremy Schupbach, legislative liaison for Alliance, an
advocacy group for the disabled.
A special
legislative committee met in 2007 to find solutions and
came up with a slew of bills, all of which passed in
2008 with bipartisan support.
Enactment
of many of the bills is on hold, however.
Two
Colorado Springs Republicans, Reps. Bob Gardner and
Larry Liston, successfully sponsored a pair of measures
giving tax credits to businesses that hired the
developmentally disabled and setting aside some state
contracts for nonprofits that have a work force the
majority of whom are disabled. But the tax credits won't
be offered because the state doesn't have enough money,
and jobs to be set aside for the disabled aren't being
filled because of a hiring freeze, Schupbach said.
Getting a
list of abusive caregivers online requires raising
$33,000 from private sources, and that has not happened,
Schupbach noted.
Rep.
Karen Middleton, D-Aurora, was supposed to sponsor a
bill allowing parents to set aside money for disabled
children and have it partially matched by the state, but
she announced after this month's grim economic forecast
that the idea is off the table.
Meanwhile, three regional centers that house and treat
severely developmentally disabled adults have not been
able to accept new clients for months because they can't
expand staffs, said Marijo Rymer, executive director of
The Arc of Colorado. If people can't get in the centers,
they tend to end up in jail, in hospitals or homeless,
she said.
Ritter
announced this week that department heads should prepare
to cut as much as 10 percent of their budgets next year
- a move that could take some $40 million from the
Division for Developmental Disabilities, Jensen said.
Ritter
spokesman Evan Dreyer said the governor does not want to
unduly harm areas like developmental disability services
that he has helped build up the past two years. Ritter
will be looking to minimize potential damage in whatever
cuts he recommends, Dreyer said.
