Maryland’s General Assembly Session Concludes

Maryland’s General Assembly finished their 90-day session on April 11th. The developmental disabilities (DD) community advocated mightily. Below are the session highlights as extracted from reports provided by The Arc Maryland, the Maryland Association of Community Services (MACS), and the Maryland Developmental Disabilities Council.

BUDGET SUMMARY

The Governor’s initial budget included a 4% rate increase for DD community services and other DD priorities. Thanks to grassroots advocacy by the DD Community, and critical leadership in the Senate and House, the Governor included an additional 4% rate increase in a Supplemental Budget. This unprecedented 8% increase comes at a critical time as The Arc Baltimore and other providers continue to recover from the pandemic and face crisis-level staffing shortages. See below:

Developmental Disabilities Administration (DDA) Budget Highlights

Rate Increase - $114 million to provide an 8% rate increase for DDA community services.
Transitioning Youth - $18,648,167 to support 566 eligible youth at least 21 years of age who have exited high school.
Emergency Funding - $791,200 will be available to provide community supports and services to approximately 32 people in emergency situations.
Waiting List — Crisis Resolution - $9,808,315 for community supports for 214 people on the DDA Waiting List with the most urgent needs—46 of whom are in Crisis Resolution.
Waiting List Equity Fund - $550,507 for the Waiting List Equity Fund that will be available for 36 people on the DDA Waiting List with the oldest caregivers.
DSS Aging Out Placements - $422,152 for 20 youth who are aging out of Department of Social Services programs and entering DDA funded community supports.
Low-Intensity Support Services - $5.5 million for short-term, low-cost support to about 2,800 people with DD and families.

Note: Additional funds are included to continue providing services for people already receiving services. DDA’s FY23 Community Services budget totals over $1.5 billion.

State Department of Education Budget Highlights (see full MSDE budget report at MD DD Council)

Autism Waiver - $30.7 million, an increase of $2.8 million so an additional 100 children with autism can receive services.
Maryland Infants and Toddlers Program - $14.6 million, an increase of $4.3 million.

LEGISLATIVE HIGHLIGHTS

Many bills were passed to improve the lives of Marylanders with developmental disabilities including legislation to put an end to the practice of seclusion in schools (and limit restraint), several childcare-recovery bills, school discipline reforms, anti-discrimination bills, the creation of commissions to examine the healthcare workforce and DORS among other important charges, the creation of a new legally recognized alternative to guardianship known as Supported Decision Making, a commitment to require seizure action plans and training for teachers who support students with seizure disorders in schools, a commitment to “end the wait” for people with disabilities on the state’s Medicaid community services waiting lists, and several human rights bills. Further details on a sampling of the bills follow:

SB 559/HB 529 - Estates and Trusts - Supported Decision Making formalizes supported decision making agreements to make sure that people accept them. It creates clear guidelines and protections in making these agreements. Supported decision making allows a person to continue to make their own decisions. It recognizes that people use support to do so. It preserves a person’s right to make their own choices and decisions. It recognizes that just like people without disabilities, people with disabilities rely on “supporters” - the people who they trust to help them make, communicate, and effectuate their decisions.

SB 636/HB1403 - Maryland Department of Health - Waiver Programs - Waitlist and Registry Reduction (End the Wait Act) requires the Maryland Department of Health to develop plans to reduce the waitlists for all waiver programs, including the Autism Waiver registry and the DDA Waivers, by 50% beginning in Fiscal Year 2024. It also requires the Governor to fund the services.

SB0291 - Bond Initiative to provide $170,000 for acquisition, planning, design, construction, repair, renovation to facilities of The Arc Baltimore.

HB1255/SB0705 Education - Physical Restraint and Seclusion - Limitations, Reporting, and Training requires that a public agency may not use seclusion as a behavioral health intervention for a student and stipulates that neither a public agency nor a non-public school may use physical restraint on a student as a behavioral health intervention unless the restraint is necessary to protect the student or another from imminent serious physical harm and other less intrusive, nonphysical interventions have failed or have been demonstrated to be inappropriate for the student.

View the complete legislative session wrap-up reports with more complete reports on legislation passed from The Arc MD and the MD DD Council.