In a shocking reversal of floor amendments from both houses of the legislature, the Conference Committee today reported out a budget that gives Governor Patrick a free hand on an expensive plan of new spending to close four of the six developmental centers. "By removing the Fernald Center from study language after both the House and Senate had demanded an accounting, the conference committee has assured that 700 families will be thrown into chaos by the loss of day/employment programs for a loved one living at home," charged COFAR President David Hart. "Since Governor Patrick announced his facility closure plan in December with $45 million in new spending," Hart continued, "We have repeatedly pointed this out to legislators. Opening expensive new state-operated group homes to evict 500 people from longtime homes and programs that work for them has made less and less sense as the revenue crisis has deepened. First the House and then the Senate demanded feasibility studies as it became clearer that DMR/DDS had no real numbers and no real plan. The Conference Committee has taken advantage of language differences between the two houses -- both of which intended for Fernald to be included in the study -- to write the governor a blank check, and ignore an obvious source of funding to fill the gap in day services that has occupied all advocates this year."

 

   In a letter to all legislators June 1 (see attachment), COFAR stated: "the Governor’s own announcement stated that the closure plan required $45 million in new investments over the 'next four fiscal years. It estimated savings of $80 million at the end of the four years. Since Dec. 12, Commissioner Howe has described the plan as 'revenue neutral' and separately estimated that $42 million in savings over the next four years would offset the new investments.  These 'moving-target' estimates show that the Governor’s 'plan' is a charade. A careful study of the cost-shifting shell games involved will show that the “plan” is a guesstimated privatization scheme putting the most vulnerable people served by the Commonwealth at risk."    "The legislature must get the real answers: Before moving hundreds and hundreds of fragile and multiply disabled persons against their will from homes and programs that work for them, with well-documented risks. Before committing to an expensive program of buying, leasing, converting, and rebuilding 20-30 new group homes, at the expense of day programs and respite supports for thousands of families who have relatives with MR/DD living at home. Before breaking up two-thirds of the safety-net comprehensive treatment centers that serve 10,000 community-based DDS clients each year, as well as backing up the community residential system. Before reaching the tipping point of privatization, after which the private providers can dictate pricing and policy. And about what DDS plans to do about 17,000 people now living at home with parents over age-60. This is no time for DDS to be closing anything." 

   "We were told that DMR/DDS officials visited Senators in May claiming that if they could not close Fernald on schedule, they would need an additional $15 million," said COFAR Vice President Thomas Frain. "The Senate as a body compared that with previous statements that the plan was 'revenue neutral,' and asked for a study with Fernald included. We believe the plan is not revenue neutral, because the unusual population of aging and multiply-disabled residents at Fernald and the other three Developmental Centers slated for closure are actually more expensive to support in so-called community residential, and will have worse outcomes. It's shell game of cost shifts to the private non-profit providers of residential and day services, to the Department of Public Health for medical and therapeutic services now provided at Facilities (and provided to more than 10,000 persons who aren't facility residents), to capital budgets, and to the high salaries of private provider executives. By dropping the ball on Fernald, the Conference Committee has missed an excellent chance to fill other budget gaps in DMR/DDS for FY2010," Frain concluded.

 

  "The Conference Committee budget reinstates pro-facility closure language that was rejected by both houses," added COFAR Executive Director Colleen Lutkevich. "It does contain a weakened feasibility study of the other three Developmental Centers that the Governor plans to close in three years. If that study is conducted fully and honestly, there may be real regrets over last night's decision. Meanwhile, the DDS budget sends us into next year with no day programs or transportation for 700 people living at home, whose caregivers must now quit jobs or scramble for some way to keep their loved ones safe and making progress. They may also be losing their respite services. These cuts fall especially hard on families with loved ones at home because of the structure of community residential services, where group homes aren't fully staffed during the day. There will be $2.5 million less for young people graduating from chapter 766, and no promise that what programs they can be offered will still be funded in FY2011. We are also concerned that the Conference Committee chose to save very small sums by using the lower Senate figures for the Tufts Dental Facilities plan, which is the only way for thousands of disabled people to get dental services, and for the Disabled Persons Protection Commission, which already has a backlog of 800 cases of abuse and neglect, and will now have to reduce its staff by five more people. Although it is easy to accept cuts in administration, the cuts to the DDS administration budget mean that an increasingly privatized system will have even less oversight, and service coordinators will barely visit group homes or see the people they are supposed to be helping. People with Mental Retardation/Developmental Disability are the most vulnerable people served by the Commonwealth, and next year they and their families are going to suffer unnecessarily," said Lutkevich.

 

In another area monitored by COFAR, and debated in the Senate, privatized contracts up to $500,000 per year will not be reviewed by the legislature. The previous limit was $200,000. The House budget did not contain any changes to this figure. "With DDS, we may already be past the tipping point where private providers can dictate terms to the taxpayers. If not, this little item moves us dangerously closer to that situation," noted COFAR Vice President Frain. 

--end-- 

 

COFAR is a 26-year-old statewide coalition of parent/family groups and individuals caring for people with Mental Retardation/Developmental Disability.  We are advocates for a full continuum of care and for family choice. COFAR is the Massachusetts affiliate of the national VOR (www.vor.net).

COFAR has formed a coalition of parent organizations, including our constituent organizations and others, labor unions that represent those who care for our loved ones, community leaders, professionals, and others. to oppose Governor Patrick's plan to shut down four of the six developmental centers in Massachusetts.

 Information, organizing tools, factsheets, and links will be organized from the "Red Alert" button on the www.cofar.org home page.

We have recently added a page about the Glavin Center, facing shutdown, where the parent association has won the editorial support of the largest regional newspaper, political support from state representative Karen Polito, and professional support from recently retired director Alfred Bacotti, PhD, the highest-ranking former DMR official and mental retardation professional in Massachusetts to break ranks with the Patrick administration's "Community-[the only]-Choice" position.

 Here are the links:

Worcester Telegram and Gazette editorial (Mar. 7) Families Pick Apart Commissioner's Arguments (Mar. 5) Former Director Dr. Bacotti Defends Glavin Quality and Costs (Jan. 30) Rep. Karen Polito's letter to Gov. Patrick opposing shutdown (Jan. 23) Friends Defend Glavin Center (Jan. 11) COFAR also will publish a detailed case study of the Glavin Center as an illustration of how DMR/DDS cost

savings arguments disappear when cost shifts and reductions of service are accurately accounted.

 

The Fernald League has filed a petition to the US Supreme Court to restore Federal Judge Joseph Tauro's order of August 14, 2007, requiring Fernald placement as an option in the individual service plans of all Fernald residents. This order was overturned on jurisdictional grounds by the US Court of Appeals, First Circuit, last September. The grounds for the action are that other circuits of the US Court of Appeals give more deference to the District Court judge who has overseen a consent decree, while the First Circuit, in this and other cases, treats the consent decree as a business contract, to be treated as if the District Court Judge had no special insight. If the Supreme court accepts the case, to determine how all circuits should view the role of the trial judge in consent decrees, Judge Tauro's order would probably go back into effect until the Supreme Court ruled. If the Supreme Court were to reverse the Court of Appeals decision, then Judge Tauro's July, 2007 order would stand: that the Romney administration's announcement that it was closing Fernald was a violation of the civil rights of the residents to an individual service plan process free of coercion. This would not make it impossible to close the Fernald Center as part of Governor Patrick's plan to close four of the six developmental centers, but it would slow down the process considerably and probably force objective negotiations with families and guardians there and at other Developmental Centers. Although the question of whether District Court judges are the best interpreters of consent decrees in their courts seems like a technicality, it really reaches to the heart of the 35-year-old case against the Commonwealth, Ricci v. Okin, in which Judge Tauro has been the only judge on the case. Judge Tauro guided the parties both to establish a community residential system for most of the residents of the state's large facilities for the treatment of mental retardation *and* guided the state to increase staff and treatment for those who chose to remain. His 2007 order would be cited in other facility-closing cases around the country. Click here for Blue Mass Group blog discussion of the Fernald League petition Click here for .pdf text of the Fernald League petition (37 pages) Click here for Waltham News-Tribune coverage of appeal Click here for New England Cable News video (slow loading) Click here to take action!

We had a great victory last Friday in Taunton Superior Court, as a jury believed the testimony of a man with MR/DD and convicted a demonic abuser on all three charges. This was a difficult case in which two police departments had initially refused to take a report of the crimes, and slapdash records were kept by a Rhode Island provider, LIFE, Inc. leading to the shocking situation of a direct care manager and four police officers testifying as defense witnesses in a rape trial. Another direct care and a young officer from Rhode Island were effective prosecution witnesses. But the key testimony was from this young man, still forced for his own protection to live in a high-security group home after working hard with his family to live at home. We hope and pray that further prosecutions will reunite this wonderful family.

A number of COFAR members and officers attended different parts of the trial. The family and prosecutor and investigators are very grateful for this support, and were amazed at how COFAR members not previously involved "got it" about the case right away. The issue of safety cuts across all levels of mental disability.

 This victory should encourage others to come forward, and law enforcement officials to pursue such cases.

COFAR salutes this brave and honest young victim-witness, his wonderful family, a core of deeply committed friends, their civil lawyer Judith Borges, the trial prosecutor Silvia Rudman from the office of Bristol County DA Samuel Sutter, investgators (whom we do not name here), the veteran judge, and young jury who rose to great maturity of judgement.

COFAR's press release is:

THE MASSACHUSETTS COALITION OF FAMILIES

AND ADVOCATES FOR THE RETARDED, Inc.

  Hodges Street,  Mansfield, MA 02048

  Telephone: (508) 339-3379  Fax: (508) 339-5034

  www.cofar.org

 

Executive Director, Colleen M. Lutkevich, colleen.lutkevich@cofar.org

Director of Communications, Mark Zanger, mzanger@comcast.net,

(cell) 617-435-3570

                                                          

For Immediate Release: January 15, 2009

Buddy Smith Convicted in Rape, Stalking of

Man with Developmental Disability

7-1/2 Year Concurrent Sentences; 5 Years Probation Consecutive

              Three years and a week after a man with developmental disability and his family were unable to get Tiverton and Fall River police even to take a report about his being raped, stalked, and threatened by Buddy E. Smith of Fall River – Smith was convicted at Taunton Superior Court today on charges of Rape, Indecent Assault on a Person with Mental Retardation, and Witness Intimidation. Judge Barbara Dortch-Okara sentenced smith to 7-/12-10 years on each of the first two charges, to be served concurrently, including time served. This means that Smith will be locked up for almost seven years. Pending appeal, and because a second defendant, William Senay, of Fall River (uncle of Buddy Smith) is awaiting trial, COFAR did not comment on certain case details.

              “In order to convict, this jury had to believe that the young man with obvious intellectual disability was testifying truthfully about what had been done to him and who did it,” said COFAR Executive Director Colleen M. Lutkevich. “They saw what I saw, an unusually small man with unusual facial features and a very stiff and repetitive way of speaking. But we listened and saw something more: an incredibly brave man. This young man, like many of our family members, tends to believe what he is told by anyone. So when Buddy Smith told him ‘If you tell, I will find you and kill you. I will bash your head in,’ this witness believed that was literal truth. And still he testified. The jury saw that he was an honest man, without guile. Sometimes he didn’t pick out Buddy Smith’s picture, ‘I was afraid’ he testified about those times. There’s nothing disabled about this man’s courage or honesty. The law enforcement officials who let the case languish because they didn’t believe a jury would believe a person with intellectual disability –they were just proven wrong,” Lutkevich concluded.

              COFAR president David J. Hart, who observed most of the trial, paid tribute to the family, “This family never gave up trying to get the best for their two disabled sons. Searching out doctors and rearranging their lives around surgeries to repair the physical parts of developmental disabilities. Even separated and divorced, they both worked with the boys, and it shows. It’s just the worst luck in the world that this great family – and I include aunts and uncles on both sides, and the grandmother who came to the trial every day -- ran into this demonic sexual predator. And even with him, they did what hardly anyone could do – they overcame bias and stigma and kept this case alive all the way to a jury that stepped up,” said Hart.

COFAR Vice President Thomas J. Frain said, “This jury has made the South Coast a little safer for all of us. The defendant was an unusually determined predator, and the family are unusually great people. But the problem of abuse of vulnerable people with mental retardation is not unusual. Up to 90 percent of people with MR/DD experience sexual assault in their lifetimes. This case almost never got to trial because the records were so tangled. When you see two police departments and a state-funded service provider on the defendant’s witness list, you know a lot of people need a lot more training. When you see a case go through four different assistant district attorneys, you know it’s not getting top priority. Although it must be said that once Bristol County District Attorney Sam Sutter took a personal interest in the case last year, things started to move.

“But where you see one case like this going to court, remember that 20 more cases are still out there, because the victim-witnesses are afraid to come forward, or disbelieved when they do because of disability. We need a stronger Disabled Persons Protection Commission, the three-investigator independent agency that takes more complaints of abuse and neglect every year. We need an amended victim advocacy bill to allow orientation and assistance for disabled people to be witnesses in court. It’s a hard time fiscally, but these are small investments that can save hundreds of lives and stop thousands of cases of abuse and neglect every year. If the most vulnerable are not safe, it’s only a matter of time for the rest of us. If this family and this prosecutor and this jury hadn’t stopped this young offender, with all his demonic energy and drive, who would have been the next to wander across his path?” asked Frain.

COFAR first became involved in the case 20 months ago.

--end--

COFAR urges members and friends to attend this important test of whether a man with developmental disability can be accepted as a witness and can win justice against his abuser. Although judges and juries are instructed to ignore press and spectators, it is important for them to notice that there is interest in this case beyond the families involved, and that their verdict is important and will be reported. Our system of justice balances the rights of the accused and the privacy rights of rape victims with the democratic guarantee that trials will be held in public and not behind closed doors.

We are especially concerned that people be in court to observe the testimony of the victim witness and his mother, which are expected at the beginning, likely Friday, but possibly as early as Thursday afternoon, or going into Monday.

Here is COFAR's updated press advisory issued Friday, January 9:

 March, 2009 update: Tufts Dental School has found funds to keep the program going for FY2009, which ends June 30. COFAR will be working to get funding for this broad-based service to people with disabilities in the FY10 budget, where the Governor's budget has annualized the cutbacks of this year.

 This program, based at DMR facilities but serving people from the surrounding areas with MR/DD and other disabilities, makes dentistry possible for many, many people who cannot otherwise open wide and stay open. The specially trained dentists do miracle work. The recent cuts send it back to 1999 funding, which will meaning closing some of the offices, yet the "savings" involved are only $200,000.

 You can read the action alert at: "Current Issues" and then you can use the unfinished email program at  this link. You will need to copy the suggested script if you want to use it, and then will have a short registration, but this tool will send emails to two government officials and two local media outlets -- email addresses are already in the program!

Please take a moment and do this now, to keep a vital program!

 This is the article from the December COFAR VOICE. For a discussion on the "Blue Mass Group" blog of DMR's tactics in dealing with the cuts, see (and add your own two cents):

 http://www.bluemassgroup.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=14087#163643 

 FY09 Budget, Governor’s Veto, Layoffs, and now… More Cuts for DMR!

Severe and Profoundly Retarded Hardest Hit

      Despite overall gains in the DMR FY09 budget now already in its fifth month, residential services for the most disabled people served by DMR took hard cuts in the FY09 budget. Then came mid-year cuts announced Oct. 15, which again axed facility funding.

     The six developmental centers and the approximately 100 state-operated group homes were funded below DMR’s request throughout the state budget process, then forced to absorb 2008 fuel bills, slammed by Governor Patrick’s veto of $750,000 from facilities, and ended up about $5 million short, more if the price of oil and gasoline stay high.

     As a result, up to 200 layoffs at five of the six developmental centers began in September, with voluntary retirement incentives. Facility directors were given a number, and were able to refuse resignations in vital areas, but inevitably program will suffer.

     Then came the worse news: Another $3 million slashed out of the facilities line Oct. 15 as declining state revenues forced another round of cutbacks. As this issue goes to press, DMR has not described how it can  accomplish another cut to the facilities line without falling below Medicaid staffing mandates, endangering the residents and risking a new round of scandals in the much-improved former “state schools.”

     Although a federal appeals panel Oct. 1 reversed Judge Tauro’s 2007 order and appeared to clear the way for closing the Fernald Center (see “Tauro Reversed,” page 4), state officials had emphasized an orderly and legal process, which would have little impact in FY09. The governor's note on the October 15 9C cut mentioned savings to be realized by closing a facility, but as COFAR has repeatedly demonstrated, there are not savings to be realized by a unilateral closing at Fernald.

     “In any case,” said COFAR Executive Director Colleen Lutkevich, “Other state cutbacks will make it very hard to move anyone in the DMR system. State-operated group homes have less money than last year, and the community residential budget is also slightly reduced. With the logjam in residential services, we felt we had to recommend deferring the governor’s ‘Community First Initiative’ – to get elderly and disabled people out of nursing homes and back home or into active treatment, even though we generally support that goal. And the Governor agreed, but that dries up another funding source to make a few more DMR residential beds.

     “Meanwhile, there is another $7 million in new cuts across the DMR system, so it’s harder for people in all settings, harder to get help from DMR administrators to navigate the minefield, and we are even losing Medicaid matching funds in the Autism waiver.”

     The forum at www.cofar.org is a good place to post observations on where the DMR cutbacks are most obvious to you.

     The other large cuts made by the Governor are to DMR administration, where they may send the caseloads of service coordinators toward an impossible 60 people each; to the Autism department, which was increasing the number of families receiving early intervention; and to DOE-DMR, a joint program which attempts to coordinate community based services for young people with special needs and DMR eligibility to keep them at home and avoid expensive residential school placements. It can be argued that all of these cuts target the minority of the most disabled people served by DMR, but the flat-funded or slightly cut contracted community-residential system is also under great demographic pressure, and thus more people with mild and moderate MR/DD are waiting around longer without any or adaquate services, although provider capacity is at least being maintained.

--end--, but comments are enabled!

DMR – The Novel

Paperback: 319 pages $15.95

Publisher: One Tiny Pizza Publishing (April 28, 2008)

http://www.otppub.com/dmr.html

COFAR members will probably not want to read this well-written novel, based on the author’s six months of real-life work at a state-operated group home. That’s too narrow a slice to get everything right, as family members understand from a lifetime with our loved ones. Trask also made a literary decision to make his central character a slacker and binge-drinker, who is even more clueless about the DMR system than the average six-month hire.

But when our friends offer to give us a copy of DMR, we should suggest that they read it. Trask does a very good job with the characters who have severe-to-profound MR/DD, and with the group dynamics of a small residence. So little has been written, fact or fiction, about that world, that his novel is a good read for the general audience, and bound to provoke more interest. We wish there were a few non-fiction studies, TV documentaries, even academic works to recommend next, but for now we can point out that there are volunteer opportunities in every city and town.

            If readers ask about facts, we will have to remind them of a brief reference deep in the book to the state-operated group homes serving the most disabled people. To call the book “DMR” without clarifying that point is unfair to the majority of people with MR/DD who are better able to communicate and thrive in community settings. The book almost entirely omits family members, or any other guardians. Don’t give this book to a career mental retardation worker, either. Most of the employees are described as goldbricking, sleeping on overnights, routinely falsifying paperwork, and neglecting treatment plans. COFAR members do encounter workers like that, but there are also the saints and miracle workers. There are some good workers in the book, and a lyrical passage about taking the residents for a swim. 

            Most troubling for COFAR members will be the author’s decision to center the character’s moral vacuity on a sexual relationship between a staffer and a non-verbal resident.  The character doesn’t know what to think, and it is left up to the reader. Informed readers will know that a profoundly retarded woman cannot consent to rape, and that the character has neglected his duty as a mandated reporter, by doing nothing.

             The novel is not widely distributed, but it is in some Mass. bookstores, and the author does readings and appearances. The link above will give you a way to order the book on Amazon. If there is interest here, COFAR did an email "interview" with author Trask which has his serious reflections on the state of he DMR system in which he worked, and a more positive view of the work itself.      

COFAR released this initial response this evening: 

 Dear COFAR Members,We received news of the ruling by the US Appeals Court which is not the news we wanted.  The court overturned Judge Tauro’s ruling, stating that he did not have the right to reopen the Ricci case as there had been no findings of systemic violations.While this is disappointing news, please keep in mind that both Judge Tauro’s ruling as well as the ruling of the Appeals Court are very narrow.  Nothing in this ruling denies the Fernald residents or any other Ricci class members their rights to “equal or better” services; and DMR can and must be held to that standard, both in Judge Tauro’s court and in State court.  Furthermore, all DMR clients, whether or not they are class members, have many rights under both DMR regulations and Massachusetts state law.  We fully expect that DMR will uphold these laws and regulations, and we urge guardians to be aware of their rights, and to use the appeals system if they feel it is necessary to maintain the rights of their wards. This ruling is neither a mandate nor a green light for DMR to close all facilities in Massachusetts. We look forward to working cooperatively with both DMR and the courts in seeking the services that our relatives are entitled to. 

-- Colleen Lutkevich

Executive Director, COFAR

After almost two years in office, the Patrick administration has issued a major policy statement on long term care. The  32-page "Olmstead Plan" roughs in a "Community First" agenda for elderly people and all disability groups.

What's good: It's a big step to have any kind of stated plan, and an impressive one to make a sweeping vision across disability groups which have had seperate budgets and bureaucrats in the past. The legislature has actually appropriated $20 million for this, so some people may get out of nursing homes and back into their own homes with supports, which everyone agrees is a great goal. $5 million of that is earmarked for the Rolland Settlement, which would move people with mental retardation/developmental disabilities out of nursing homes and back into active treatment, mostly a fine goal despite the careless settlement agreement of this year which includes in people like the Groton 43 who actually need the high level of medical support of a pediatric nursing home.

Another good thing is that the plan views the issue as "Long Term Care." Despite the equal billing for "Community First Olmstead Plan" -- the actual title -- this is a move away from the civil-rights and individual-rights rhetoric that has whittled away at the long-term side of the continuum of care since the 1970s. Individual rights are terrific, until the right to refuse treatment lands hundreds of thousands of mentally disabled people in prisons and homeless shelters across the US. More good points: actual timetables for some changes. Workforce development piece. Suicide prevention. Personal care attendants. Affordable housing. Transportation. Employment. And some specifics. A lot of real thinking and planning went into this paper.