They once were considered the backbone of efforts to help the developmentally disabled.
But these days, the network of private centers that care for retarded and otherwise mentally disabled Illinoisans is experiencing a labor shortage.
The workers aren’t leaving for better careers in the health-care industry. Instead, many are taking jobs with employers such as McDonald’s or Burger King, where the pay is higher and health insurance is better.
Officials at the Countryside Association for the Handicapped in Palatine say they can’t find and retain qualified employees to take developmentally disabled people to and from work, serve as liaisons to the companies that hire them, or to help them with daily living skills.
And unless places like Countryside can offer higher salaries, the problem will only grow worse, they suggest.
“We have a challenging time recruiting direct-care workers at a starting salary of $16,000 a year,” said Janice Murphy, Countryside’s director of community services. “We have 183 families who need respite care, and we cannot hire enough qualified people.”
A large portion of the blame rests with the Illinois General Assembly, officials at Countryside and other centers say. These private firms get their money from the state, but lawmakers haven’t approved additional funds to provide the workers with even a meager cost-of-living raise.
Since the state began moving people out of mental institutions more than two decades ago, private agencies such as Countryside have assumed much of the job of caring for them.
Similarly, private agencies that find homes for abused and neglected children have seen their responsibilities and costs increase because of new legislation aimed at moving state wards into permanent homes more quickly.
The state, however, has not been consistent about granting raises to workers at these private agencies, even while workers in state institutions have received steady increases, said Jeff Stauter, legislative director for the 150-member Illinois Association of Rehabilitation Facilities.
“The state has had a long-time goal of downsizing state institutions and placing people in the community, and we support that,” Stauter said. “But they haven’t sent the money along with the clients.”
Since 1991, community agencies have received a 12 percent funding increase from the state, while state facilities have received a 30 percent increase, Stauter said. At the same time, the consumer price index has risen 24 percent.
The 1998 state budget provides $600 million for state facilities that house about 6,000 patients, and $1 billion for agencies serving 200,000 people in their communities.
A bill that would have provided a 3 percent cost-of-living raise to community agencies passed the Illinois Senate this year. But it was not called for a vote in the House.
Agencies are hoping that when the legislature reconvenes in January, lawmakers will take action to provide more money.
But Steve Brown, a spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago), said the bill was not called because Madigan supported Gov. Jim Edgar’s request not to pass any spending increase unrelated to education.
And that may not have changed, Brown said.
“If you include all the people who want cost-of-living increases, that comes to about $100 million,” Brown said. “The people who want it should try to get more support from the governor.”
That support is unlikely to materialize in time for raises to be included in the current state budget, said Thomas Hardy, a spokesman for Edgar, a Republican.
“Anything for the current budget year is very unlikely,” Hardy said. “The next opportunity for this will be the new budget, and this proposal will be discussed throughout the spring legislative session.”
Ron Moorman, executive director of the Child Care Association of Illinois, prefers to call the desired raise a “cost-of-doing-business increase,” because, he says, it covers a broader range of increased costs than simply worker salaries.
For example, Moorman said, new legislation that requires the state to find permanent homes quickly for abused children under the care of the Department of Children and Family Services has increased the number of home visits, staff meetings and court dates that agency employees must provide or attend.
Since private agencies care for about 70 percent of the children who are DCFS wards, or about 35,000 children, the new requirements have increased agency expenses, including rent, utilities and transportation.
“The state treats us differently than it treats its own employees,” Stauter said.
