BILL REQ. #:  S-3497.1 

Read first time 01/15/14.   Referred to Committee on Health Care .

     AN ACT Relating to enacting planning measures and strategies that provide for future long-term service and support needs of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Washington state; and creating new sections.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 1   The legislature makes the following findings based on the July 31, 2013, state auditor's report:
     (1) Over twenty thousand five hundred individuals with developmental disabilities receive services from the state, while an additional fifteen thousand who meet financial and physical eligibility requirements do not currently receive any services from the state (no paid services caseload);
     (2) Families are the major care provider of their family member with a developmental disability;
     (3) Washington has a complex, severely underfunded service system;
     (4) Washington serves fewer people who have a developmental disability than the national average and is ranked thirty-eighth in the nation for the state fiscal effort for funding of developmental disabilities services;
     (5) The majority of people who have the highest activities of daily living, behavioral, and medical needs live at home with their family;
     (6) Washington spends less per person on home and community-based waivers than the national average;
     (7) Washington needs to expand its community capacity for respite, crisis stabilization, and peer support networks.

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 2   By January 1, 2015, the developmental disabilities administration of the department of social and health services shall identify stakeholders to participate in work groups, at their own expense, to complete the following and report to the appropriate committees of the legislature on issues raised in the July 31, 2013, state auditor's report which includes:
     (1) Providing various community funding scenarios to phase in serving the fifteen thousand people on the no paid services waitlist caseload;
     (2) Developing strategies to expand data gathered during the initial developmental disabilities application process to improve waitlist management;
     (3) Identifying ways to streamline the eligibility and assessment processes that ensure fairness for services provided by the developmental disabilities administration;
     (4) Providing different options that address the need for more community crisis and respite support for individuals and families;
     (5) Identifying the resources and models needed to expand community peer support networks so that they can provide greater support to people receiving limited services or waiting for services;
     (6) Reviewing how other states use shared support hours for community living;
     (7) Identifying additional community residential options;
     (8) Identifying strategies to increase employment hours and wages for individuals employed;
     (9) Reviewing current community access rules and identifying ways to increase hours of service;
     (10) Developing strategies to address retaining an adequate workforce;
     (11) Identifying ways to streamline the developmental disabilities system to make it easier and more accessible to navigate;
     (12) Identifying mechanisms for improved contract monitoring and quality assurance;
     (13) Researching and analyzing moving the developmental disabilities system to a managed care approach and to more self-direction;
     (14) Identifying the various medicaid waiver and state plan options that could make better use of state funds while making the service delivery system more accessible to people in need of the services.