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Public Policy |
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Supports governmental
advocacy at the local, state and national level
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Dohn Hoyle, Executive
Director for The Arc Michigan, is a registered lobbyist
with the State of Michigan.
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The Arc Michigan employs
Wiener and Associates as a full service, bipartisan,
governmental affairs law firm located in Lansing,
Michigan.
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Action Alerts (State
and Federal) |
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Do
You Want the Term "Mental Retardation" Removed from Federal
Laws? New federal bill would replace this
stigmatizing term with "intellectual disability".
Click
here to learn more and Take Action.
 On
November 17, Senators Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Michael
Enzi (R-WY) introduced
"Rosa's Law" (S. 2781), a bipartisan bill to substitute
outdated, stigmatizing terms in federal health, education
and labor laws. The terms "mental retardation" and "mentally
retarded" would be substituted with the terms "intellectual
disability" and "individual with an intellectual
disability."
Click on the image to watch
Senator Mikulski's speech on the Senate floor when she
introduced the bill.
Click
here to learn more and Take Action.
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Seclusion
and Restraint in Schools Act Passes House Education and
Labor Committee
In a good step forward for enactment of the first federal
legislation concerning restraint and seclusion in schools,
the House Education and Labor Committee (on a bipartisan
34-10 vote) passed H.R. 4247, the Preventing Harmful
Seclusion and Restraint in Schools Act after adopting a
Manager's substitute.
The bill will now go to the full House of Representatives
for consideration. Congressmen Kildee and Ehlers voted for
the bill. Please be sure to thank both members for their
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Seclusion and Restraint
Representative Deb Kennedy
has introduced legislation based on the report released by
Michigan Protection and Advocacy Service, Inc. (MPAS)
about restraint and seclusion practices in
the State. The MPAS report was released and the
legislation announced at a press conference on
Wednesday, December 2, 2009.
The legislation was introduced as
HB 5639 with 17
co-sponsors. It was referred to the Committee on
Education. The bill seeks to amend section 1312 of "The
revised school code" in PA 451 of 1976 as amended by PA
461 of 2000.
Read about and listen to the Michigan
Radio
news report on
the introduction of restraint and seclusion legislation
by Representative Kennedy.
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Direct Action
Organizing Training
Mad as hell
and don't want to take it any longer?
Don't
mourn...organize! Attend the ADAPT
Direct Action Organizing Training in
Memphis, Tennessee in the spring of 2010.
Topics to
be covered
include:
The Power relationship,
Picking an Issue,
Winning Strategies/Tactics,
Organizing a “Direct Action”,
Negotiating – Getting to Yes,
Forming an ADAPT Group,
and Pitchfork Approach to Social
Change. See
the attached
brochure
(doc),
(pdf)
or contact Bob Liston at 406-544-5137 or
adaptbob@gmail.com
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UPDATE on Bill That Limits
Patients' Rights
The number of
co-sponsors for HR 1255 introduced by US
Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) has grown
from 63 to 71, happily still none from Michigan.
HR 1255 would limit the rights of
agencies who receive federal funds, such as the
state Protection and Advocacy agencies for
persons with developmental disabilities to file
class action lawsuits against institutions.
The bill
would limit the ability of lawyers to
protect individuals with developmental
disabilities who live in large group
settings. Contrary to its intent, the bill
is titled "To protect the interests of each
resident of intermediate care facilities for
the mentally retarded in class action
lawsuits on behalf of such resident."
A great deal of
the progress for the rights of individuals with
disabilities to live independent and productive
lives in the community have been made as a
result of class action lawsuits against states
for the denial of individual rights in
institutions.
You may
wish to contact your US
Representative and thank
him/her for
NOT co-sponsoring
HR 1255. Call the US Capitol switchboard
202-224-3121 and ask for your
Representative's office.
Talking points
are:
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This
legislation is not needed and would harm
individuals with disabilities.
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It would harm
the efforts of parents and advocates to work
for community services and supports needed
to live in the community.
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It would limit
the efforts of lawyers to represent their
constituency.
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Doing Advocacy |
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Open For Questions Wrap Up
The trial
run of Open for Questions has wrapped up with the
President answering several of the most popular
questions during a special online town hall. Click
here to view the online town hall or read questions
that have been submitted.
www.whitehouse.gov/OpenForQuestions/
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State Issues/Updates |
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Governmental Affairs Update
(pdf)
rtf or
doc 12/21/09 |
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The Arc Michigan's Position on Positive
Behavior Support
The Arc Michigan's
position on Positive Behavior Support (PBS) supports
the policy of Michigan Sate Board of Education that
every district implement PBS for all students
throughout the school system. Below is the full
position statement.
School–Wide Positive
Behavior Support
The Arc Michigan
believes that every student should receive a free
and appropriate public education in the least
restrictive environment as provided through IDEA
2004. A school–wide positive behavior support
system is necessary to achieve this goal. Best
practice is universal positive behavior support
(PBS) that is school–wide as a positive preventive
measure rather than as a reactive measure. PBS is
beneficial for ALL students. The Arc Michigan
supports the policy of the Michigan State Board of
Education that every district in Michigan implement
a system of school–wide positive behavior support
strategies and the Michigan Department of
Education’s “School-wide Positive Behavior
Implementation Guide” issued in 2008.
PBS begins with
identifying needed environmental changes and
accommodations, implementing them, then identifying
and teaching skills to replace inappropriate
behavior. In a school that uses PBS, expectations
for behavior are clearly stated, widely promoted and
referred to frequently. Positive behaviors are
identified, taught, and practiced by all. Everyone
is aware of behavioral expectations, including
parents, and is respectful of each other.
Positive Behavior
Support (PBS) is a research–based best practice that
uses data–driven decision making. Universal support
is successful for about 80-85% of students. Another
10% respond well to a more personalized approach.
In each school about 5-7% of students require
intensive intervention. This process begins with a
thorough functional behavior assessment (FBA) to
determine what the student’s behavior is trying to
communicate. The Michigan Department of Education
Office of Special Education and Early Intervention
Services (OSE-EIS) has developed a FBA process for
this purpose. Intervention must then be focused on
adjusting the environment and teaching needed skills
rather than using reactionary consequences that are
punitive.
Benefits of
school–wide PBS include the following:
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Increased active
participation for all students
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Increased academic
and pro-social skills
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Increased
attendance and graduation rate
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Decreased bullying
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Decreased drop-out
rate
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Decreased office
detention referrals
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Decreased
suspension and expulsion
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Consensus Revenue Report
Adopted January 11, 2010
The State Treasurer and House
and Senate Fiscal Agency Directors met for the
Consensus Revenue Estimating Conference this
morning.
They agreed that revenue in the
current fiscal year, FY 2010, will be $156 million
less than was projected in May 2009. Of that total,
$51 million is General Fund/General Purpose revenue,
and $105 million is School Aid Fund revenue.
For Fiscal Year 2011, General
Fund/General Purpose revenues are estimated to be
$6.958 billion, or $70 million over FY 2010. School
Aid Fund revenues in FY 2011 are estimated at
$10.480 billion, or $22.4 million over FY 2010
revenue estimates as revised this morning.
These consensus numbers
represent a significant compromise between the
bleaker projections of the Senate Fiscal Agency and
the more optimistic projections of the House Fiscal
Agency and State Treasurer. All parties noted that
they will gather again in May, if not sooner, to
revisit these estimates before final legislative
action on FY 2011 budgets is completed.
Governor Granholm must present
her FY 2011 budget recommendations no later than
February 12. Earlier today, State Budget Director
Bob Emerson indicated that, based on today’s
estimates, further spending cuts in this fiscal year
are unlikely.
The Governor will present her
final State of the State address on February 3.
Update 2:00 pm:
A summary of the
Revenue Consensus agreement is now available at
www.senate.michigan.gov/
sfa/Publications/BudUpdates/YearEndBalance.pdf
This document further details
the anticipated year-end General Fund and School Aid
Fund balances for FY 2010, and the projected
revenues for FY 2011.
Based on these estimates, which
incorporate carry-forward funds from FY 2009, there
will be a $72.7 million General Fund surplus and a
$53.7 million School Aid Fund surplus in FY 2010.
And, based on these estimates,
there is a projected $1.1 billion General Fund
budget shortfall for FY 2011 and a projected $423
million School Aid Fund budget shortfall for FY
2011. (Budget shortfall is defined as the imbalance
between estimated revenue and appropriations based
on current law/policy.)
These estimates, especially as
to FY 2011, assume 1) no increases in state revenue;
2) a continued freeze on statutory local revenue
sharing; 3) a continuation of $140 million in funds
transfer from the Merit Aware Trust Fund to the
General Fund; and 4) no additional federal stimulus
funds beyond those already available.
The summary points out that
federal ARRA funds are directly supporting almost
$1.1 billion in funding that, absent replacement
dollars from another source, will decline to $209.6
million in FY 2011.
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(posted 01/11/10)
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Medicaid Institutional
versus Community Expenditures: FY 2008 Aged/Disabled
Compared to Developmental Disabilities
From
Steve Gold's Information
Bulletin # 298 (1/2010)
In the
previous two Information Bulletins, we reviewed how well
your State has done at ending discrimination against the
elderly and people with physical disabilities (#296) and
ending discrimination against people with developmental
disabilities (#297) with regards to Medicaid Long Term
Care expenditures and services.
In
this Information Bulletin, we will focus on how your
State has done at ending discrimination by comparing the
two CMS categories of people with disabilities, each
with a separate budget line: on one hand, elderly/people
with physical disabilities, and, on the other hand,
people with developmental disabilities. Again, this
comparison is with regards to how your State allocates
its Medicaid Long Term Care expenditures between its
institutional versus community-based services.
This
separation into two categories is because historically
CMS has not encouraged States to combine different
disabilities into one Medicaid Waiver and because the
federal Medicaid statute requires cost comparisons based
on the type of institution a person would enter:
elderly/people with physical disabilities go into
nursing facilities, and people with developmental
disabilities go into Intermediate Care Facilities.
If one
looked at "all disabilities", that is, combined the two
categories in FY 2008, then 57.3% of all Medicaid LTC
expenditures went for institutional services and 42.7%
went for community services. However, when Medicaid
expenditures in an "all disabilities" category are
broken down and separated into MR/DD and Aged/PD
categories, there is a dramatic difference.
For
persons receiving Medicaid funded MR/DD services in FY
2008, nationally 35.5% went for institutions (ICFs) and
64.51% was spent for community-based (waiver) services.
Thus, significantly less Medicaid funds went to provide
services for persons with MR/DD in institutions than in
the community. In dollars, $12 billion was spent on
institutions but $22 billion was spent for
community-based services.
In
contrast, for the aged and persons with physical
disabilities, 68.4% of Medicaid funds was spent on
institutional services and 31.6% on community-based
services. In dollars, nursing facilities received $49
billion but only $22.6 billion was spent for
community-based services.
Why
the lopsided distribution based on type of disability?
Better DD advocates? More expensive? More DD advocates?
More organized DD community? Flukes?
Certainly States know how to serve some people with
disabilities primarily in the community because they do
it for people with developmental disabilities.
In
FY 2008, Michigan spent 80.3% of its Medicaid LTC
dollars for aged/physically disabled on institutional
services. In contrast, it allocated only 3.9% of
its Medicaid LTC dollars for persons with developmental
disabilities to institutional services.
Why
don't States treat all people with disabilities the same
opportunities?
Obviously, some States treat the two categories the
same:
OR and
NM are equal opportunity States with virtually no
institutional expenditures for either A/PD and DD.
On the
other hand, MS has virtually only institutional
expenditures for both A/PD and DD.
Why
are there such dramatic differences between the two
categories? We always thought the ADA meant all
Americans with all Disabilities Act - not Americans with
some or preferential Disabilities Act. Obviously, some
States and the disability advocates successfully treat
all disabilities equally. Why don't all States?
top (posted
01/15/10)
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Disabled
Oakland
University Student Wins Housing Fight
The Detroit News on December 29th carried a
report stating that Oakland University was found
to have violated the federal Rehabilitation Act by
failing to make reasonable accommodation.
Oakland University violated
a federal law by refusing to allow a disabled
student to live in a campus dorm and now must make a
room available for him, according to federal court
order.
The
opinion issued by U.S. District Judge Patrick J.
Duggan paves the way for Micah Fialka-Feldman, a
25-year-old Huntington Woods student, to move to the
dorms in January and ends the disabled student's
two-year battle to live on campus.
Fialka-Feldman has a mild
cognitive impairment that hinders his ability to
read and write. He has been taking classes at
Oakland under a program called OPTIONS, designed for
college-age students with cognitive disabilities who
couldn't be admitted to Oakland under the regular
admissions standards. Fialka-Feldman pays a program
fee that's equal to the cost of tuition and doesn't
earn grades.
Read more about this
story
here.
top (posted
01/8/10)
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Michigan Organizations Concerned about Elimination of
Optional Medicaid Benefits
A letter signed by
several Michigan Organizations has been sent to members of
the Michigan Legislature urging the restoration of optional
Medicaid services.
"The elimination of
Medicaid Adult dental services, as well as the other
federally defined 'optional' services, is causing suffering
and threatening the lives of the most vulnerable people in
Michigan. Lower-cost prevention care is being sacrificed for
questionable short-term savings. Restoring these services
could help keep Medicaid adult recipients healthy and save
money in the long run.
The July 1 elimination of
dental benefits has already had severe consequences.
Officials with a dental clinic treating an elderly
developmentally disabled woman in Northern Michigan said her
condition was complicated by a severe dental infection that
they were not able to effectively treat because of the
cancellation of dental benefits. She died October 7 in an
Alpena hospital."
Click
here to read the letter.
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Program
Accessibility for Persons with Disabilities
The Arc Michigan
participated with The Center for Civil Justice in
Saginaw which took the lead in pressing the Michigan
Department of Human Services (DHS)
to adopt and promote a comprehensive
policy on program accessibility for persons with
disabilities. This has resulted in the DHS including
a new policy on
Nondescrimination in Service Delivery in their
Administrative Handbook.
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Wiener Associates Year End Legislative Summary |
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Federal Issues/Updates |
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Disability Community's Recommendations to House-Senate
Conference on Health Reform
January 8, 2010 - The attached
letter was sent by disability advocates to the
House-Senate Conference Committee negotiating health care
reforms.
top (posted
01/22/10) |
AARP's Most Current Healthcare Reform Priorities in
Congress
The
attached (pdf)
document offers a summary of themes we are pushing
in Congress during these late stages of development. We
hope you find it helpful with your own advocacy and send
it along as you see fit.
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Obama Administration Pushes States
To Provide Community Living
Community-based living
for people with disabilities got a boost recently
when the Department of Justice filed friend of the
court briefs in lawsuits against three states.
The briefs were filed
in support of the Supreme Court’s decision in
Olmstead v. LC and EW. In that decision, the court
said that states have an obligation to give people
with disabilities the option to receive care in a
community setting, where medically possible.
President Barack Obama
said earlier this year that his administration would
beef up enforcement of the court decision, which
dates back to 1999. And, in late November the
Justice Department took action by filing briefs in
lawsuits against the states of Connecticut, Virginia
and New York.
Read more in this
Disability Scoop story by Michelle Diament
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UPDATE on Tax-Free
Trusts For Persons
With Disabilities
There are now
137 co-sponsors of
HR 1205, a bill that would
allow tax-free savings accounts for people with
disabilities much like those already in
existence for those saving for college.
Among the co-sponsors are four US
Representatives from Michigan: Ehlers, Kildee,
McCotter and Schauer.
The bill sponsored
by Rep. Ander Crenshaw, R-Fla. is
called the Achieving a Better Life
Experience Act of 2009 or the ABLE
Act of 2009
and would create accounts
similar to the 529 plans that currently exist to
save for college. Up to $500,000 could be
invested in the accounts, which would be
tax-free in many cases.
HR 1205
would allow trusts to be created to pay for
disability related expenses such as education,
housing, health care and personal support
services. The funds in the trust would not count
against the individual’s maximum asset amounts
to qualify for Medicaid and other government
programs. The
bill was referred to both the Ways and Means and
the Energy and Commerce Committees on February
26, 2009 where it remains.
The Senate version,
S 493, is sponsored by Sen. Robert Casey,
D-Penn. and now
has 11 co-sponsors,
none from Michigan. It and has been referred
to the Committee on Finance
since February 26, 2009.
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End 2-year Wait for Medicare Update
S. 700, a US Senate
bill aimed at putting an end to the two-year
waiting period that people with disabilities must
endure before getting help from Medicare
currently has 19 co-sponsors, including US Senator
Debbie Stabenow of Michigan. The bill,
“Ending the Medicare Disability Waiting Period Act
of 2009,” was introduced in the Senate by Senator
Jeff Bingaman (D-NM).
This primarily
benefits people under the age of 65, when most
become eligible for Medicare, who suffer from a
severe and costly disability.
S. 700 was referred to the Finance Committee on
March 25, 2009.
The US House version,
H.R. 1708, was introduced by US Representative Gene
Green (D-TX-29) and now has 103 co-sponsors
including Kildee, Kilpatrick, Levin, and McCotter
from Michigan.
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Newsletters |
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Special Reports |
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2008 Arc Michigan Annual Report
(pdf) |
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