WAITING IN WISCONSIN A bulletin about the disability waiting list in Wisconsin written by Gerry Born January 2003 Vol. 2 No.1 DHFS SECRETARY EXPERIENCED AND DEDICATED This writer first met the new Secretary of the Department of Health and Family Services (DHFS), Helene Nelson, in the early 1980's when she became the Deputy Secretary to Secretary Don Percy of the then DHSS. She always was impressive in terms of her administrative abilities and organizational skills along with a focused and personable approach. She and Don were instrumental in creating an environment in DHSS that led to much staff energy being exerted to address problems and develop creative solutions such as the Community Options Program. Since leaving DHSS in early 1983, Helene has been a top-level administrator in a number of state agencies. She also has been the Director of the Dane County Department of Administration, been staff to the Dane County Executive, and the Director of the Dane County Department of Human Services. Obviously she is very well prepared for her current assignment. Added to all this work experience, however, are personal experiences that have led her to an understanding and sensitivity to people in need of some assistance. She possesses values that will bode well for people with disabilities and their families as she makes decisions about policies that have significant impacts on the lives of people with disabilities. Even with all of this, however, she is in a very untenable position since she will be expected to eliminate large sums of money from the DHFS programs and possibly some staff. Knowing her, she will do this with careful thought and deliberation. All those involved in the disability community wish her well in her very challenging assignment. DIFFICULT BUDGET TO BE INTRODUCED ON FEBRUARY 18 One can only anticipate how traumatic the Governor's 2003-05 state budget proposal will be. As of now the current fiscal year's budget deficit is $452 million, and a special session of the legislature has been called to begin to address this problem. The next biennial budget deficit is somewhere near $3 billion. As was presented in a previous edition of "Waiting", all of state government operations cost $3.4 billion for the two years of the biennium. This means that cuts in state operations may need to be very deep and other programs such as shared revenues that help counties and other local government units to fund local services, community aids, school aids, Medicaid, and who knows what else may all be included in the cuts. This clearly will require the legislature and state citizens to consider what kind of state Wisconsin will be when all of this is done. On the positive side, DHFS has been working with consultants to attempt to secure additional federal funds through a similar mechanism to the one that was used to obtain additional federal funds for nursing home and other Medicaid programs during the last budget, something called inter-governmental transfer or IGT. While complicated, it could result in millions of dollars for Wisconsin. While much of this money would need to go to reduce the deficit, some is being considered for community programs to address waiting lists and increase funding for counties to assist with costs of people currently receiving services. This would be especially helpful if shared revenues and community aids are spared from the cuts since these are also funds used by counties to pay for community services. Another possibility of something that could be very positive in the budget proposal is the closing of one or two of the state centers. Now down to only a fraction of what the populations used to be, this may be exactly the right time for Wisconsin to join with a substantial number of other states that have closed one of more of their DD institutions. Also as proposed previously in the DHFS budget, a substantial reduction in funds used in community DD institutions called ICFs/MR and transferring the money and people to more home-like settings would also be a positive step in strengthening the community disability service system even in some very difficult times. All of this suggests that people cannot give up on advocacy; just the opposite is the case. In fact some of the initiatives now being considered are the direct result of strong advocacy by many people in the disability community with the assistance of dedicated professionals inside DHFS. People concerned with services for people with disabilities will need to be more involved, work even harder, and keep the message constantly before the Governor and the legislature that services for people with disabilities need to remain intact and must even increase to begin to meet basic needs. It will also require an even larger number of people to attend the April 23, 2003 rally than the three to four thousand that attended in 2001. County and regional meetings are also being scheduled through the "People Can't Wait" initiative to provide information to all interested in working for improvements in disability services. The next edition of "Waiting" will be exclusively on the Governor's proposed budget. WISCONSIN'S TAXES HIT POOR AND MIDDLE CLASS The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy of Washington, D.C. recently issued a major new study, "Who Pays? A Distribution Analysis of the Tax Systems in all 50 States." According to the study, low and middle-income families pay a higher share of their income in state and local taxes than do the richest families. The richest Wisconsin taxpayers with average incomes of $777,000 pay 8.1% of their income in state taxes while taxpayers that earn between $30,000 and $48,000 pay 11.9% in state and local taxes. After the federal itemized deduction, the wealthiest pay 5.9% while those in the lower and middle income pay 11.3%. Those earning less than $18,000 pay 10.2% of their incomes for state and local taxes, almost twice what the wealthiest 1% pay. Since 1989 this disparity has been growing. Possibly this information may be helpful if the Governor and legislature can be convinced to develop resources to protect some of the state's most critical services. The entire study is available on the internet at: http://www.itepnet.org/whopays.htm. Stay tuned and stay active. PEOPLE CAN'T WAIT ... SURVIVAL COALITION OF WISCONSIN DISABILITY ORGANIZATIONS 16 North Carroll Street, Suite 400 Madison, WI 53703 608-267-0214 voice/tty 608-267-0368 fax