Sean's CILA funding is in jeapordy. Please pray that funding is reinstated. See newsletter below. Sean's agency is Individual Advocacy Group.Please take a moment to write your state legislatures and the governor.
McMANUS CONSULTING
DISABILITY SERVICES
Contact: 847.256.0456, mcmanus06@comcast.net, or Facebook
ED's NEWSLETTER
No. 47 ........ Aug. 7, 2015
Special Edition
LAWYERS: STATE MUST PAY PROVIDERS FOR ALL PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES . . .
The Plaintiffs and intervenors in the Ligas Consent Decree accused the State of Illinois late Thursday of flagrantly disregarding the rights of more than 10,000 people with developmental disabilities, and they urged the federal court to order the state to issue Medicaid payments to providers immediately.
Their motion, obtained by McManus Consulting, seeks payments not just for members of the Ligas class but for non-class members as well.
Earlier in the week, attorneys for the state appeared before Judge Joan Lefkow in a case involving Medicaid payments for children and made oral promises to the judge to begin making all Medicaid payments. But the state failed to follow this up with any statement in writing to clarify their intentions, prompting the Ligas lawyers to file their motion.
Residents of CILAs and ICFDDs "are in immediate peril," according to the motion. "As private providers inevitably reduce or cease their operations, the state will likely have no other option but to place individuals in State Operated Developmental Centers." The state's disregard of the court's orders and federal statutes is "tantamount to placing the Illinois Constitution above federal law, in violation of the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution."
The motion was filed by Equip for Equality and the Roger Baldwin Foundation of ACLU, representing Ligas plaintiffs, and attorney William Choslovsky, representing residents of intermediate care facilities who are intervenors in the case. They requested a hearing next Tuesday before Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman.
Joining in the request was Ligas Court Monitor Ronnie Cohn, who filed an affidavit pointing out that most providers are completely reliant on state funding. "These providers literally live from payment to payment and have no ability to survive even a short termination or reduction of funding," she said.
PROVIDERS SAY THEY ARE ON THE VERGE OF CLOSING . . .
Affidavits also were submitted by Charlene Bennett of Individual Advocacy Group, Romeoville; Mary Beth Hepp, Helping Hand Center, Countryside; Jessica Rosales, Progressive Housing, Olympia Fields; James A. Keller, Keltech Management Co., Anna; Karen Donovan, Futures Unlimited, Pontiac; Krystal L. Gruenfelder, Parents and Friends of the Specialized Living Center, Swansea; John Huelskamp, Community Link, Breese; and Michael S. Poe, ARC Community Support Systems, Teutopolis.
Rosales said Progressive, which provides residential services to 244 people, has less than 30 days of cash on hand and has maxed out a $750,000 line of credit. They will be forced to close and will default on $12.6 million in revenue bonds. Bennett said IAG has 57 CILAs and "unless some dramatic reimbursement arrangements occur soon," they will be unable to meet their obligations. Hepp said Helping Hand serves 80 persons in CILAs, including 17 Ligas class members, but will not be able to operate the CILAs with funding for only Ligas class members.
The motion asks for enforcement of both the Ligas decree and an order that Judge Coleman issued June 30, directing the comptroller to make all payments to providers. It says on July 23 the state sent a letter to providers informing them that payments would be made only for Ligas class members, "in complete disregard" of the decree and the order.
The lawyers called the letter seriously misleading. "Through this letter, the state attempts to transform the agreed order into something it's not--an order which requires the comptroller to make only some payments and which allows the state to pick and choose which payments the comptroller should make."
"The state's disruption of funding to service providers impermissibly shifts from the state to the providers the obligation to provide funding to people with developmental disabilities. . . . Funding through the state, though at a rate among the lowest in the nation, is the only means by which providers can pay their employees and pay for housing, food, nursing care, therapy and the other essential needs of the individuals they serve."
The lawyers said it is a violation of the decree to provide funding only for class members. "As a specific example, Stanley Ligas, one of the named plaintiffs, lives in a four-person CILA (run by IAG) with three roommates he chose, none of whom are class members. With funding only for Mr. Ligas, this CILA home and the supports necessary to maintain Mr. Ligas' life in the community cannot be sustained."
McManus Consulting was founded in 2011 by Ed McManus, who worked for the Division of Developmental Disabilities for many years as an attorney, coordinator of the Home-Based Program, and facilitator of the North Suburban Network, and prior to that as a Chicago Tribune reporter/editor in Springfield and Chicago. We have provided a variety of consulting services to a total of 47 agencies--staff training on how the DD system works, hands-on assistance on specific issues, and consultation by phone on a retainer basis when questions arise about the system. We have also recently begun to provide formal consultation to families as well as informal info by phone.
Ed's Newsletter is published approximately once a month. Its publication is made possible by the generous support of 22 organizations that are currently on retainer for phone consultations: Active Visions, Avenues to Independence, Clearbrook, Community Alternatives Unlimited, Countryside Assn., CTF Illinois, Douglas Center, Glenkirk, Helping Hand Center, Individual Advocacy Group, Lambs Farm, Leeda Services, Little City, Orchard Village, Progressive Careers & Housing, Ray Graham Assn., Riverside Foundation, Shore Community Services, Southwest Community Services, Encompass/Jewish Child & Family Services, Trinity Services and UCP Seguin.
