State lawmakers this week gave the Department of Economic Security the go-ahead to shift $3.3 million in agency funds in order to keep services for Arizonans with developmental disabilities afloat — at least for another month.
It’s the second year in a row that the Division of Developmental Disabilities faces a funding crisis.
Even with the short-term fix, the division still needs another $138 million to cover expenses through the end of the fiscal year.
Rep. David Livingston (R-Peoria) said that level of spending is unsustainable.
“We want to help these kids, but we can't just be spending $100 and $200 million more every year unlimited. So it has to be a better teamwork with the governor and us and the DD community in finding results,” Livingston said.
As a condition of granting DDD the funding transfer on Thursday, the legislators attached some conditions. They’re requiring DES to send formal letters to lawmakers with their supplemental funding requests for this year, and a monthly breakdown of the state’s DDD populations by diagnosis.
They also asked the department to review a recent audit of Minnesota’s Department of Human Services and report back to the state’s Joint Legislative Budget Committee on whether any of the issues found in Minnesota are unaddressed in Arizona’s program.
Last year, lawmakers did not pass supplemental funding for the DDD program until just days before it was set to run out of money, causing panic from the community relying on those services.
Livingston said he doesn’t want things to get to that point again. He suggested lawmakers pass the state budget sooner rather than later this session.
“What we need to do to avoid that whole situation is maybe we need commitment from the governor's team, a serious commitment, of passing a comprehensive budget in the next six weeks,” Livingston said.
As part of last year’s funding legislation, lawmakers also mandated reforms intended to lower the program costs.
DES representatives told lawmakers they’re still working to implement many of those changes.
Livingston said the onus is on Gov. Katie Hobbs to make sure DES and Arizona’s Medicaid agency work together to implement last year’s reforms, since both agencies are under her.
The program has also grown substantially since last year.
“The program grew, the number of people grew, the benefits people in the program were receiving grew,” Livingston said.
DES representatives said one of the factors behind the program’s growth is a significant increase in autism diagnoses since 2006.
