Continue Your Calls!
The budget process continues…it is still not good. As of today the conferees are proposing 50 million dollars in cuts to services dollars through the LME's [there is some talk of a provision that would "encourage" LME's to use fund balances to support people who lose services do the cut . In addition it looks as thought the provider rate cut is back to 3% and somehow the legislators intend to reduce the state's case management services by 50% through "consolidation". [50 million dollars is almost half of the total case management provided in the state] Community support and Personal Care will take deep cuts while the State run mental retardation centers will receive no rate reductions.
We continue to advocate with members directly but without additional revenue it looks as though the budget will pass with terrible cuts. We know you all have called and continue to advocate with your legislators but we need to ask you to continue. On Monday morning we will send an e-alert to our list up-dating and asking people to call their legislator one more time.
For Chapters and your key members we would like you to make a very personal call and /or a formal letter talking about the devastating affect on your members, your agency and the people you serve and support. This appeal should say that the cuts that are proposed will destroy our system and it is really up to them our elected officials to save our system and the lives of families and people with disabilities in your community. Tell them that although The Arc will do all we can we can not do this without their help.
Points to make are…
Over 60 million in service cuts to LMEs is 20 percent of the available state funding for people with MHDDSA
3% reduction in Provider rates will reduce already poor staff salaries and cause people to lose service
50 million from Case Management is impossible to achieve and will cause major service disruption and thousands of jobs in NC
Reductions to Personal Care, Community support and other targeted services like Guardianship will cause series harm to individuals
Services to people with disabilities are critical but if that's not enough remember that these services mean jobs locally that will be lost …with the DHHS cuts alone there is still the potential to cost the state 10s of thousands of jobs
On Monday at 2:00 pm we will hold a conference call for chapter leaders…to discuss the details of these cuts and any additional information we will have then. The number is 1877-284-9000 and pass code 7824632#
This sounds discouraging, but we have made some progress an will make more if we keep working! as always please call or e-mail if you have questions or need more information.
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1001 Nights - A fundraiser for ARC of Orange - Click for more information
Read more on the Chapel Hill Magazine blog.
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