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Social service groups make case for funds By SARAH CHACKO Advocate Capitol News Bureau Social service groups standing to lose state funding — one focused on children, the other on people with disabilities — testified before a House budget subcommittee Tuesday. Funding for a $1.5 million state program that provides home-based counseling to families at risk of losing their children has not been renewed for the next fiscal year. A nonprofit agency aimed at finding ways for people with disabilities to maintain employment and independence also is seeking funding not currently included in the 2008-2009 state budget. The Legislature is working on the state budget in its regular session. The state Office of Community Services Assistant Secretary Marketa Garner Gautreau told the House Appropriations’ Health and Human Services subcommittee Tuesday that the state is trying to focus more on preventative, “front-end” services to children and families. The state program, called intensive home-based services, provides 24-hour counselors for about a month to families with children at risk of being taken into foster care. For the $1.7 million spent on providing the service to nearly 1,000 children in the past year, the state was able to avoid more than $7 million in costs had those children been put into foster care or residential housing, Gautreau said. An extensive therapy component of the home-based service is allocated $800,000 in the upcoming budget. Gautreau said the $1.6 million requested to fully fund the program is enough to keep the current services, but not expand the program. The program was funded with federal money, which has since been cut, Gautreau said. “We continue to see a decrease in federal dollars and that has a huge impact on states,” she said. Decreasing federal funds have also caused the Louisiana Assistive Technology Access Network, or LATAN, to ask for a $1 million appropriation in state money. LATAN President Julie Nesbit told the House subcommittee that the program was fully funded through federal grants until 2005. Since then, federal funding has decreased and the state’s allocation has increased from $300,000 in 2005 to $600,000 last year, Nesbit said. “Congress expected the states to help pay for services to citizens in the individual states,” she said. Assistive technology is used to help people with disabilities in a variety of areas, including devices helping with mobility, communication, reading and making doors easier to open. Nesbit said the state asked the organization to expand its services across the state. But LATAN spokeswoman Maria Yiannopoulos said it is difficult for people with disabilities in rural areas to visit one of the organization’s two service centers. And it is costly for the group to travel the state to exhibit the devices available, she said. “We’re an expanding organization,” said Shreveport attorney Matt Allen, who testified on behalf of LATAN. “We think these funds are needed to meet those needs.” |
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