Committee Advances Seven Bills for DD Study
Committee: Children, Families, Health, & Human Services Interim Committee
Author: Sue O'Connell
Posted on October 2, 2018
A legislative committee agreed to introduce seven bills in the 2019 legislative session to strengthen community services for adults with developmental disabilities, after studying the topic for more than a year.
The bills by the Children, Families, Health, and Human Services Interim Committee touch on topics ranging from worker pay to crisis services to assessing the needs of people with developmental disabilities. The bills have been assigned the following bill draft numbers, which can be used to track them throughout the legislative session:
- LC 402, requiring the use of standardized tools to assess the support needs of people with developmental disabilities;
- LC 403, requiring the executive budget to include an inflationary increase for providers of community-based developmental disabilities services so the Legislature can decide whether to appropriate the money needed to fund the increase;
- LC 404, appropriating money to increase wages by up to $3 an hour over the next two fiscal years for direct-care workers in the community developmental disabilities system;
- LC 405, requiring that money appropriated for community developmental disabilities services be used only for those services or, if unspent, on a grant program for providers;
- LC 406, requiring the Department of Public Health and Human Services to reimburse residential habilitation services on a daily or monthly, rather than hourly, basis;
- LC 407, creating a tiered program of crisis response services using both new and existing funding; and
- LC 408, requiring a review of administrative rules, policies, and procedures related to community services to eliminate any that are duplicative or not cost effective.
At its final meeting of the interim on Sept. 13-14, the committee focused primarily on wrapping up its work on the House Joint Resolution 24 study of DD services and on its agency oversight duties for DPHHS. The committee also:
- authorized the early drafting and pre-introduction of five DPHHS legislative proposals;
- received an explanation of the way in which DPHHS will use more than $30 million that was restored to the agency's budget as a result of Senate Bill 9 from the November 2017 special session;
- heard updates on the implementation of the medical marijuana program and the status of autism services for children served by the Medicaid and the Healthy Montana Kids Plan; and
- received several reports that DPHHS is required by law to provide to the committee, including reports on efforts to prevent and reduce the occurrence of suicide and child abuse and neglect.
For more information on the committee's activities during the interim, please visit the committee's website or contact the committee staff.
Committee Website: http://leg.mt.gov/cfhhs
Committee Staff: soconnell@mt.gov or (406) 444-3597
