* Memo to providers last month from the Illinois Department of Human Services’ Developmental Disabilities Division…

We wanted to share some exciting news. With the passage of the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), states have been provided an additional 10% in federal Medicaid matching funds (FMAP) for Medicaid Home and Community-Based Services. The DDD has developed a plan to incorporate the additional FMAP funds, estimated at $45 million, for an increase in the proposed FY22 budget. This funding, when added to the funding proposed in the Governor’s FY22 budget, will allow for a total investment of $122 million in the I/DD system in FY22.

* While that’s in line with recent state spending, it’s a fraction of what a state study says it should be…

Three years after a federal judge found Illinois had failed to meet the standards of a consent decree mandating sufficient services to residents with intellectual and developmental disabilities, Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s proposed budget falls far short of a state-funded study’s recommendation to address the problem.

The study’s five-year spending plan includes a first year increase of $329 million to the roughly $1.1 billion allocated to community providers who work with people with disabilities such as Down syndrome, cerebral palsy and autism.

Those organizations say the money would go a long way toward addressing the major issues they face: staffing shortages, a lack of day programs such as job coaching and a waiting list of more than 5,000 adults for services including housing. […]

Released in December, the five-year spending plan is the result of a 2018 federal court ruling that found Illinois was not in compliance with a 2011 consent decree requiring the state to make community services more accessible to those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman ruled the state had failed “to provide the resources of sufficient quality, scope, and variety.”

* More…

[John Pingo, President and CEO of the Goldie B. Floberg Center in Rockton] said this is what Illinois gets when the state underinvested in the system far too long.

“It cannot handle a giant system shock. And that’s exactly what the pandemic has done,” Pingo added. “It took a system that was just barely getting by and added a tremendous amount of stress.”

Pingo and [Mark Schmitz, the Transitions of Western Illinois Executive Director] appreciate that the Pritzker administration understands their concerns and continues to work on solutions. However, Schmitz said it could take years of concerted effort to get to where providers need to be.

“The increase in the governor’s budget is just barely keeping up with the increase in the minimum wage in the state. So, it’s not really getting us ahead in terms of fixing the parts of this that are broken,” Schmitz said. “Those keep coming in front of the court monitors to say Illinois has a broken developmental disabilities system.”