Upcoming Morrow DD levy imperative to operations

By Nancy Foglesong, Super­in­ten­dent, Mor­row County Board of DD –

The Mor­row County Board of Devel­op­men­tal Dis­abil­i­ties faces a fis­cal emer­gency that threat­ens the ser­vices the board offers in poten­tially dev­as­tat­ing ways. I would like to share an update for the com­mu­nity on the agency’s cur­rent status.

Past actions that have allowed us to “main­tain” oper­a­tions involved bud­get and staffing reduc­tions and included tem­po­rary assis­tance from the Ohio Depart­ment of Devel­op­men­tal Dis­abil­i­ties. Many peo­ple may not know that Mor­row County has been the only county to need this assis­tance, and approval was based on the results of an exten­sive oper­a­tions and finan­cial review which pro­vided no rec­om­men­da­tions for reduc­tions or improve­ments. Fed­eral stim­u­lus and one-time grants also helped; how­ever, no bud­get can sur­vive on inci­den­tal funds. While these actions helped to sus­tain some ser­vices and give the appear­ance that oper­a­tions con­tin­ued, many ser­vices were sus­pended: Early Inter­ven­tion, speech, occu­pa­tional, phys­i­cal and recre­ational ther­a­pies, and com­mu­nity employ­ment sup­port ser­vices. Sadly, these aren’t just ser­vices that were lost. This loss rep­re­sents count­less Mor­row County res­i­dents whose lives were and con­tinue to be adversely affected, in some cases per­ma­nently. Wait­ing lists have con­tin­u­ally grown, with over 150 indi­vid­u­als wait­ing for res­i­den­tial sup­port ser­vices. Our work­shop could serve 120 adults and yet we can only fund ser­vices for less than 80. Each year 40–50 chil­dren are born with delays and have no hope for des­per­ately needed early inter­ven­tion ser­vices. Board mem­bers and staff are right­fully con­cerned about the future of ser­vices for indi­vid­u­als with devel­op­men­tal disabilities.

Many fam­i­lies wait­ing for des­per­ately needed ser­vices worry what it will take to secure the future for cur­rent and new fam­i­lies touched by devel­op­men­tal dis­abil­i­ties. The lack of local sup­port is doing a grave injus­tice to Mor­row County peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties, and many res­i­dents might not under­stand the Board’s func­tion and how it oper­ates. This issue is about peo­ple, not an agency, not a board, not employees.

His­tory teaches us lessons and unless we learn from our past, we often make the same mis­takes. Each group of peo­ple who are “dif­fer­ent” from oth­ers unfor­tu­nately endures a strug­gle to gain accep­tance in our com­mu­ni­ties. It does not take much to see how Mor­row County is dif­fer­ent. We need only to look at other coun­ties and see how they sup­port their neigh­bors with dis­abil­i­ties. Res­i­dents there enjoy com­mu­nity involve­ment and gain­ful employ­ment; they’re pay­ing taxes and expe­ri­enc­ing all that life has to offer. We at DD believes we want the same oppor­tu­ni­ties for our county, but won­der what’s hold­ing us back? Is it past mis­takes of the board, a lack of under­stand­ing the real need, inad­e­quate infor­ma­tion, or another excuse? It’s time for every­one to stand up, speak out and save this price­less county service.

For those who still strug­gle with the deci­sions of past admin­is­tra­tions, I can address some of the per­sis­tent rumors and mis­con­cep­tions, but want every­one to under­stand that har­bor­ing ill feel­ings does not and can­not pun­ish those admin­is­tra­tors from the past. It does con­tinue to deeply hurt the peo­ple who deserve it the least: your neigh­bors with disabilities.

One mis­con­cep­tion is that the county board “sent” many chil­dren into the pub­lic schools. Per­haps bet­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tion was needed before and dur­ing this tran­si­tion. But the changes that occurred in Mor­row County were hap­pen­ing every­where in our won­der­ful coun­try. Why? Because many peo­ple believed in an equal oppor­tu­nity for pub­lic edu­ca­tion, and believed we can learn more from each other in an inclu­sive envi­ron­ment. Fed­eral and state laws were passed and fam­i­lies made the best deci­sions they could, choos­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ties for “main­stream­ing” their chil­dren into the pub­lic schools. Around the same time, state grants were made avail­able to improve facil­i­ties. Mor­row County took advan­tage of a 90% state funded grant. Again, per­haps bet­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tion was needed, but the out­come for Mor­row County is a won­der­ful build­ing that houses a vari­ety of ser­vices for children.

Yes, chil­dren still receive ser­vices at the cen­ter on Bank Street. By shar­ing our build­ing, sev­eral agen­cies pro­vide ser­vices to chil­dren in a safe envi­ron­ment designed for chil­dren. No, we don’t have a pool, but results of a county-wide energy analy­sis found our build­ing to be one of the most effi­cient of all county buildings.

The Board has recently taken another oppor­tu­nity to get safety and secu­rity updates for the build­ing through another 90% state-funded grant. Mor­row County is very for­tu­nate to cap­ture these grants. Have you taken the time to visit this build­ing? We believe you will be pleas­antly surprised!

So what hap­pened to the Board’s finan­cial struc­ture? To sum­ma­rize a long, painful his­tory: with the loss of favor­able com­mu­nity sup­port through the changes in pub­lic edu­ca­tion of stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties, the renewal attempts of two five-year levies failed, and at the end of 2002, only a min­i­mal 1.5 mill con­tin­u­ing levy remained in effect. The local tax sup­port of 5.5 mills was lost and could never be regained with­out pur­su­ing “new” funds.”

Mor­row County has the low­est voted mill­age in the state. Inad­e­quate local fund­ing cre­ates even a greater finan­cial blow, with local funds being needed as “match” to draw fed­eral funds. The need of fund­ing to con­tinue cur­rent ser­vices is crit­i­cal. The Board can­not con­tinue to sus­tain our cur­rent ser­vices with­out the pas­sage of this REPLACEMENT + levy.

We’ve made sig­nif­i­cant changes in admin­is­tra­tion, the imple­men­ta­tion of col­lab­o­ra­tive and effi­cient oper­a­tions, and increased pub­lic rela­tion efforts to improve aware­ness within our won­der­ful county. How­ever, the Board of DD con­tin­ues to strug­gle with many chal­lenges and really needs the com­mu­nity to help by stand­ing up for indi­vid­u­als with devel­op­men­tal dis­abil­i­ties, by shar­ing the value of these des­per­ately needed ser­vices and by assum­ing our social respon­si­bil­ity for a won­der­ful group of peo­ple whose lives could be for­ever changed with just a help­ing hand, a car­ing voice and a com­pas­sion­ate heart.

It’s time to open your hearts and minds and keep work­ing until we make the one change that is des­per­ately needed: local sup­port of our most pre­cious peo­ple! Change will hap­pen. Will it be what we want it to be?

– Writ­ten with deep­est respect for indi­vid­u­als with disabilities.

Posted by Randa Wagner on Oct 23 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.