rssFlorida gov slashes budget for Floridians with disabilities
Friday, April 01, 2011 at 12:00 pm
- 5 Comments
Rather than waiting on legislative approval for his most recent budget cut push, Florida Gov. Rick Scott has issued an executive order slashing the state budget for social workers and group homes for the disabled.
The cuts would affect between 30,000 and 35,000 Floridians with severe developmental disabilities. They go into effect Friday and will remain in place at least through June 30, the end of Florida’s fiscal year.
Amy Van Bergen, executive director of the Down Syndrome Association of Central Florida, tells the Orlando Sentinel, “lt’s not like, ‘Gee, does this mean I have to skip a vacation this year?…Potentially, these cuts have life and death implications for these people.”
The news comes at the same time as a report that the Agency for Persons with Disabilities (APD) has received approval for a federal Medicaid waiver program that is designed to help stabilize the budget. Nevertheless, the APD is now expected to operate minus 15 percent of funding.
Bob Wright, a board member and former CEO of Winter Park’s Threshold Center for Autism, tells the Sentinel that the most practical way to make do with less funding — cutting staff accordingly — would be an impossibility because it would put the Treshold Center in violation of state laws on staff-to-patient ratios. “This may break our backs,” he said.
Wright went on:
“If this were any other workplace, you would consider it a war zone…My staff gets bitten, hit, kicked, spat upon, defecated on, urinated on — for $8.23 an hour. And every time we start talking about giving our guys a pay raise, the governor comes along and cuts the rates.”
That pay rate is a dollar above Florida’s minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. It’s also right around the average pay for round-the-clock in-home aides. Aides who work 24 hours a day for four-day stretches tell the Sentinel they make around $800 a week, which works out to $8.33 for every hour they’re on the clock.
In an ironic display of temerity, governor’s office staff happily tweeted about an appearance Scott made at a fundraiser for the Special Olympics on the same day he authorized the order.
5 Comments
Comment posted April 1, 2011 @ 5:18 pm
This is the same criminal who was forced to resign as the head of a company that pled guilty to massive amounts of systematic fraud (bilking Medicare and Medicaid), including 14 felonies, leading to a historic $1.7 billion fine. He is now, in a similarly corrupt fashion, pushing to privatize Medicaid in Florida because the health care business he handed over to his wife when he took office could reap a major profit if the legislation becomes law.
What idiots voted for this low-life?
Comment posted April 1, 2011 @ 5:30 pm
If I were a conspiracy freak or paranoid…I start thinking, that tightening the belt meant eliminating the sick, the poor and the hungry.
Comment posted April 1, 2011 @ 6:13 pm
It’s pretty hard to fend for yourself and be a Republican “rugged individualist” when you’re disabled, isn’t it? One of the noblest endeavors of a government is to extend the greatest possible aid to those needy citizens who cannot help themselves. To turn your back on — or worse, to profit from — the sick, the poor and the hungry is not just heartless and cruel. It’s evil, plain and simple.
Comment posted April 6, 2011 @ 6:45 pm
the cut isn’t 15% and it doesn’t just affect the service providers. The Cuts, for most services, exceed 37%. For, the rest it nears 80%. Govt. Scott is trying to make the governament more lean. This specialized field is the leanest that I have experienced. Most agencies operate on less than a 3% margin. The agency that I direct, has committed employees that have agreed to work for, in cases, less than minimum wage averages in an effort to ensure the safety and welfare of the individuals they serve. We often say that we do this because we make a difference and not to make a dollar. I say put your “money” where you mouth is. I say if we had any money we would as we are doing… We will operate in the red until July 1st. My staff says or until the lights go out. They say: … where is the commitment from this gorvenor for the most vulnerable residents of his “beloved” state, which was the commitment he made to assure the safety of vulnerable floridians.
Most other agencies are simply not providing services to recipients that would require ratios which would force them to pay illegal wages to its employees.
He says that his emergency act is done to assure the safety of the service recipients. There will likely be more homeless people on the street come may 1st.
Ryan Krampitz, PCS, inc
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