Commissioners support plan to keep DD funded

Regionalization plan would have state control Medicaid waiver matches

On Tuesday, June 30, Julie Monroe, superintendent with Lawrence County DD, was at the Lawrence County Commissioners meeting to get their support for a move to combine Lawrence County DD with nine other county DD boards in an effort to get the state to increase its financial support of their programs.

Monroe explained that the DD board has been struggling financially after a local levy failed at the ballot box.

“Unfortunately, we aren’t the only county board in the state to be struggling. There are several county boards that have been unable to pass levies,” she said.

She said the biggest strain is that the board has to not only provide local programs, they also have to match Medicaid payments, which many people don’t understand because they don’t see it.

“Basically, we are the local Medicaid administrative authority for developmental disability waivers,” Monroe explained, adding that was moved onto the counties in 2001 as part of the Ohio’s state budget. “That allows us to use our local levy dollar funds as Medicaid waivers. What has happened is that Medicaid waiver services have grown and grown.”

Those waivers pay for people in the DD program to live in the community rather than something like a group home.

Among services like transportation “the Medicaid waiver pays for their provider, it pays for them to go to day services,” Monroe said. “Since 2001, the demand and that cost has increased to the point that we are not able to provide things like school or early intervention or other services.”

The Lawrence County DD levy brings in a little over $3 million in tax revenue and pays out just under $3 million for the Medicaid waivers.

“This is a problem, this is not sustainable,” Monroe said. “And it is going to have to be dealt with. It is way above us locally. It is going to have to be dealt with at the state level. There is going to have to be major system reform.”

The State Board of DD has come up with a regionalization plan to have Lawrence, Scioto, Jackson, Adams, Pike, Brown, Fayette, Highland, Gallia and Meigs counties merge into a single board to handle the Medicaid waiver administration. Then the state would pay the Medicaid match for those 10 counties.

Monroe said they would have to give up control of the waiver administration but then the local levy funds could be used for local programs instead paying everything for Medicaid.

“Then we could fund our school, we could fund early intervention,” she said.

She said the 10 counties were chosen by the state based on need and consistency of services. She added that right now in Lawrence County, they aren’t doing any additional waivers because they can’t afford it and the waiting list keeps growing.

The state DD department is working with the legislators because it requires a $15 million for the state to pick up the Medicaid match for the 10 counties.

Commissioner Colton Copley asked what they could do to help such as “reach out to our state friends?”

“Yes,” Monroe said, adding that this regionalization plan would help them be sustainable for years in the future.

“We would have to give up the control, but we can’t afford the control, quite honestly,” she said.

“So this seems like a no brainer for Lawrence County,” Copley said.

He said the commissioners would send letters of support to state representatives and senators supporting the regionalization plan.