West Virginia disability rights advocates protest cuts in state budget

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WBOY) — Interim meetings are being held in the West Virginia Capitol in anticipation of a potential special session by the West Virginia Legislature to adjust the state’s budget, and at those meetings, disability rights advocates are making their voices heard.

On Sunday, advocates and families of people with intellectual disabilities rallied at the state capital in Charleston to protest a 10% budget cut to the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) Waiver.

The IDD Waiver provides financial aid to help families pay for at-home or community-based care for their loved ones with intellectual disabilities instead of having them committed to a state psychiatric hospital. Disability Rights of West Virginia’s Legal Director Michael Folio has called the waiver “a lifeline.”

“By ‘lifeline,’ I mean this waiver program is meant to prevent people from being involuntarily institutionalized, because if they fail to receive the services they need in the community, then inevitably they’re going to be placed in one of the state psychiatric hospitals,” Folio said.

Folio emphasized the financial impact of cutting the IDD Waiver’s budget and that the program comes with a two-to-one federal match, meaning that the $11 million budget cut really equates to a loss of around $33 million.

He also said that the IDD Waiver program is much more cost-effective than institutional care. In a letter that Folio sent to Gov. Jim Justice this past February, he said that the West Virginia Department of Human Service’s own analysis reported the annual cost per participant for a waiver program is $28,691, while the cost for institutional care is $72,228.

According to Folio, there are 20 individuals who should have been released with IDD Waivers but remain institutionalized and have been institutionalized for a total of 14,865 days at a cost of $14.2 million.

Folio said that institutionalization, along with their disability, causes trauma that patients often can’t recover from. “They come in better when they’re committed than when they’re discharged,” he said.

Gov. Justice announced last week that he expects a special legislation section for the budget in late May, at which point the funding for the IDD may be evaluated.

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