TOPEKA — Later this week, the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services will release its plan for cutting more than $43 million from its budget.
“You will have it in the next few days,” SRS Deputy Secretary Pedro Moreno said Tuesday, addressing members of the Legislature's Joint Home and Community Based Services Oversight Committee.
The plan will be forwarded to Legislative Research Department for dissemination to legislators, after which it will be made public.
Moreno offered to share the plan after Rep. Bob Bethell, R-Alden, said he’d been hearing many of his constituents complain that SRS had been less than forthcoming with information on how the cuts would be implemented.
“It’s unfortunate,” he said, “that we hear a lot about what’s about to happen, but we’ve yet to see an actual plan.”
Bethell said he wanted the plan in writing and “exact” in detail.
Earlier this year, lawmakers agreed to cut about $21.5 million from the state-funded portion of SRS’ budget; more than $43 million from all funds, including federal matching dollars.
The cuts take effect in fiscal 2012, which began July 1, 2011.
SRS officials in the last several weeks have announced a number of cuts, including a plan to close several of its regional and local offices and reductions in the amounts it pays contractors. But so far, agency officials have not released a total of what they've cut so far or what they might cut in the future to meet their budget goals. SRS Secretary Rob Siedlecki has said that “everything is on the table.”
Siedlecki did not attend the hearing Tuesday.
Other topics of discussion:
• Moreno said that SRS would be launching an initiative aimed at generating services for about 285 people with developmental disabilities now on the department’s waiting list.
Earlier this year, lawmakers agreed to fund the initiative: $6.6 million all funds; $2.8 million from the state general fund.
SRS, Moreno said, had decided to limit the expansion to services for people who are not receiving any.
Rep. Jerry Henry, D-Cummings, protested the decision, noting that legislators had wanted the expansion to include people currently receiving “partial services” as well as those receiving none.
“What you’re saying is that someone can be in a day program and be on the waiting list for residential services for five years, and you’re going to pass them by for someone who’s not receiving any services and has been waiting for two years?” he said. “That’s not what we voted on.”
Moreno said SRS would expand the initiative to include both groups, if the committee said to do so.
• Sen. Laura Kelly, D-Topeka, asked Moreno to explain why SRS had decided to eliminate funding for a Web-based training program for people who work with the developmentally disabled and why the program's operators had been given only a few days’ notice.
“You told them on July 29, and you turned the system off on Aug. 1,” Kelly said.
Moreno, who was accompanied by 15 members of SRS’ central office staff, said he wasn’t sure how the decision had been made. He said he would provide Kelly with a “very detailed explanation” by the end of the day.
“You have so many staff here and nobody knows?” Kelly said.
Moreno replied: “I’m sorry, but we don’t have that explanation for you.”
If the information was provided later to Kelly, it wasn't made public during the hearing, which ended about 4:30 p.m.
• The committee’s chairwoman, Sen. Carolyn McGinn, R-Sedgwick, said that she had heard several service providers complain that SRS had been slow in renewing their contracts and that the process for renewing the contracts was unclear.
Moreno confirmed that many of the department’s contracts with providers had been extended because negotiations were more complex than expected.
“What I know is that extensions were granted by mutual agreement in order to allow for a proper time to negotiate,” he said. “So I don’t think anybody complained about extensions.”
McGinn questioned Moreno’s logic.
“Well, you wouldn’t (complain) if that was your only choice, right?” she said. “Your choice would be ‘We’re not going to do this’ or ‘We’ll take an extension.’”
• Kelly asked SRS officials to comment on recent reports that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is close to citing Kansas for not doing enough to protect the rights of disabled people and that the U.S. Department of Justice is considering filing a lawsuit against the state.
Dave Davies, an SRS attorney, declined to speculate what either federal agency might or might do.
“At this point, we’ve not received a letter from HHS,” he said.
Several committee members asked Moreno and Anna Pilato, SRS deputy secretary for strategic development and faith-based and community initiatives, to discuss the department’s plan for reaching out to faith-based service providers.
Pilato said the department’s intent is to enhance services by making sure that faith-based groups are aware of the state’s needs and are asked to play a role in meeting those needs.
Pilato said she was building a list of services available in communities across the state.
“I want this to become a statewide partnership,” she said.
The list, she said, will enhance SRS’ ability to help those in need, including those who are victims of natural disasters or human trafficking.
Committee members seemed unimpressed.
Sen. Kelly Kultala, D- Kansas City, told Pilato that the Kansas Attorney General’s Office has launched a task force on human trafficking.
Sen. Dwayne Umbarger, R-Thayer, said the state Adjutant General’s Department oversees the state’s response to natural disasters.
The committee is scheduled to meet again on Oct. 11 and 12.
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