Disabilities advocates bemoan cuts
MONTPELIER – Proposed cuts to human services contained in the Governor’s fiscal year 2011 budget plan represent an “assault” on the dignity and welfare of Vermonters with disabilities, advocates said Wednesday.
About 300 Vermonters piled into the Statehouse Wednesday to decry cuts they say will dial back home-based services and other programs that allow them to enjoy independent lives in their communities. As the 20th anniversary of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act draws near, they say, the latest budget plan threatens to undo decades of progress.
Administration officials, including Gov. James Douglas, have said such cuts, as unpleasant as they are, are necessary in a time when state revenues are dropping.
“We’re not asking for handouts. We’re asking for opportunities for people with disabilities to be active and productive members of society,” Deborah Lisi-Baker, president of the Vermont Coalition for Disability Rights, told a throng of supporters in the Cedar Creek room late Wednesday morning. “We have a right to be counted as equal citizens and to have government be there when we need it.”
Lisi-Baker’s organization represents 27 disability-rights organizations operating in Vermont. Next year’s proposed budget, she says, represents a clear and present danger to the tens of thousands of Vermonters living with disabilities.
Disability advocates are targeting their lobbying efforts largely on the nearly $7 million in cuts at the Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living. Those cuts, they said, could force vulnerable Vermonters into the institutionalized settings that many of the state’s programs are designed to avoid.
Lisi-Baker cited the $1 million in cuts proposed for the attendant-services program as an example of misguided fiscal policy. Without the personal-care attendants the program funds, Lisi-Baker said, untold residents with disabilities will no longer be able to reside in their homes or retain employment.
“We know there are families who will not be able to maintain the arrangements these attendants make possible,” she said.
Ed Paquin is the head of Disability Rights Vermont, a state organization that receives federal funding to provide legal representation to people with disabilities. He lambasted the “rhetorical niceties” used to justify the cuts and said alternative funding mechanisms – namely new tax revenue – must be used to counteract the fiscal problems that spurred the budget proposal.
“Perhaps instead of employing either defeatist or deceptive language that assumes life must get harder … we need to actually try to find a balanced approach that actually solves problems instead of just protecting one constituency,” Paquin said. “Let’s stop frowning and bemoaning the tough job ahead and find some combination of reasoned cuts, federal support, rainy days funds and tax increases that solves more problems than it creates.”
The advocates said the proposed cuts would flood other parts of the system with hundreds of new clients. The relatively modest amounts Vermont spends on personal attendants, for instance, saves the state money by keeping many residents from having to use far costlier state-subsidized living arrangements, according to Paquin.
Sen. Doug Racine, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Health and Welfare who is now campaigning for governor, said he will pursue the creation of new tax revenue to support some of the programs on the cutting block.
“There’s nothing quite as powerful as democracy in action and what I see in front of me are lots and lots and lots of Vermont citizens asking we respect you as Vermont citizens,” Racine told an approving crowd. “There will be cuts – there have to be cuts, but let’s talk about revenue side of the equation as well … Taxes are on the table and they need to be to get us through this.”
The advocates in the Statehouse Wednesday are not alone in their objections to the proposed budget. Tuesday another collection of advocates and those who rely on state services led by the organization Voices for Vermont’s Children, had a similar message. The state should increase taxes – particularly on wealthier Vermonters – rather than cut programs, they argued.
Secretary of Administration Neale Lunderville said that as tough as such cuts may be increased taxes would be worse.
“Raising taxes right now is exactly the wrong thing to do if we want to help employers create jobs,” he said. “The governor opposed the Legislature’s raising taxes last year and has proposed rolling back the most egregious of those.”
But those in the Statehouse Tuesday and Wednesday who use those programs see it differently.
Chris Rowley and her husband, a Milton dairy farmer, have had eight foster kids, including three that they have adopted. Some of their children are autistic or have other health care needs. She has a simple answer when people ask her why she has adopted children with so many needs, Rowley said.
“If people like we don’t do it who will,” she said. “Please don’t make it financially impossible.”
Or take Bonnie Beede of Cabot. A transportation assistance program that is part of the Reach Up program helped her to get a car when her husband’s was damaged in a flood, a car she needs to live in Cabot and still get her son to doctor’s appointments.
“That vehicle has been a lifeline for us,” Beede said.
Carlen Finn, executive director of the children’s advocacy organization, said Tuesday that if such cuts are made to human services programs – and she does not think they should be – at least the cuts should include a sunset provision that would mean they would expire when the economy improves.
“It is time for our Legislature to stand up and say ‘no more cuts’,” Finn said.
By Peter Hirschfeld and Louis Porter Vermont Press Bureau