Report says dual system for Conn. disabled costly

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Connecticut's dual system of public and private services for the developmentally disabled is very costly, according to a new legislative report presented Tuesday, which recommends eventually shifting to a fully private system.

But analysts for the General Assembly's Program Review and Investigations Committee did not recommend closing some key state-run facilities, including the five regional centers that now provide 24-hour residential care and the sprawling Southbury Training School, built in the 1930s, which halted new admissions in 1986.

The report recommends continuing with plans, outlined by a court-approved settlement agreement, to offer the severely mentally disabled clients at Southbury the choice to move off campus into a community program. More than 20 people in recent months decided to leave Southbury. About 425 people still live there.

"Allowing the process ... to work by offering clients to voluntarily choose a community placement, rather than requiring them to leave, seems a more humane, less litigious, and less costly option," according to the report. Some family members of Southbury residents have raised concerns that the campus will be closed sooner than expected in order to cut costs. They believe Southbury is the best place for their loved ones.

Committee staff members were charged in March 2011 with comparing the cost of providing public and private residential and day services to Department of Developmental Services clients. The recommendations could lead to new legislation for the next legislative session, which begins in February.

In 2010, it cost $875 a day on average to care for a client at a state-run community living arrangement or group home, compared to $349 a day for a private home, according to the report. It cost $907 a day to care for someone at a state-run intermediate care facility, compared to $415 a day at a private one. It costs nearly $906 a day, on average, to care for someone at Southbury.

The agency has been in the process of gradually reducing public residential services. According to the report, the agency was able to convert 17 group homes to private agencies. Five additional closures of public residential programs are currently under way.

Pam Fields, executive director of ARC of Meriden-Wallingford, Inc., an organization that provides residential, day and employment services to DDS clients, said she's not surprised by the report, which echoes recommendations of earlier studies. She said it makes financial sense for the private sector to provide services to the disabled and the state to regulate and monitor those services.

"We are one of the few states that do provide both," she said, referring to the 18 states that operate a dual system of public and private community residential services. "I think it is very difficult to monitor services and provide services at the same time."

Fields said the key to a successful private-sector system is adequate state funding.

"As long as the private providers remain whole and are reimbursed for the cost of services ... then the private sector can really handle any of the services," she said. "It is the only fiscally responsible move that the state of Connecticut can make."

The Program Review and Investigations Committee staff said such downsizing and consolidations raise issues with what to do with state employees at those facilities. The report presented to lawmakers recommends redeploying those workers "in other capacities in the community," such as providing services to individuals at home on a waiting list for residential placement or by providing respite care to the clients' families.