IEC Represents You With the VA State Legislature by Jane Burnette
IEC provides a voice for its consumers with their Virginia legislators. IEC staff attended a Virginia State Budget hearing in Fairfax on January 3 and went to Richmond on January 28 to meet with state delegates and senators prior to the vote on the proposed budget. IEC’s Executive Director, Dr. Mary Lopez, made another trip to Richmond on February 5 to protest HB 1356, which would have diluted the Virginians with Disabilities Act.
At the budget hearing in Fairfax, members of the Virginia Senate Finance Committee and House Appropriations Committee listed as more than 100 citizens spoke, often quite eloquently, about why they believed state money should be spent to resolve their issues. This hearing was one of a series of local hearings designed to prepare the state delegates and senators to approve a new two year state budget.
Amidst the competing priorities, representatives from several Centers for Independent Living stood up to present the perspective of consumers with disabilities. Their speeches underscored the need for monies to fund supportive services for people with disabilities living in their home communities, including salaries for personal assistants and additional funding for Developmental Disabilities and Mental Retardation Waivers, among other items. The overall point of the speeches was that it makes no sense to send people to nursing homes and other institutions when they want to live in their own homes and communities.
In Richmond, IEC members met with legislators and their aides to emphasize the need for additional monies for community based care and personal assistants. More than 700 people in the IEC service area live in nursing homes. It has been shown that it is much more expensive for the state to pay for people to live in institutions, such as nursing homes, than to provide them with the supportive services they need to live in their home communities. The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) reports that Virginia’s nursing homes cost an average of $154 a day or about $4620 a month in 2006, an expensive proposition. Medicaid expenses for nursing home care are much less: Average national monthly spending per Medicaid covered nursing home resident was $2,426 in 1995. In comparison, providing personal assistance and other support services through “aged/disabled” home and community-based waivers averaged $485 per month across the nation in 1995. It is less expensive to provide people with the services they need to stay in their own homes, and for people who want to do so, it provides a better quality of life.
Dr. Lopez’ trip to Richmond in February also contributed to the quality of life for people with disabilities in our area. The trip was a successful effort to prevent the passage of HB 1356, which would have weakened the Virginians with Disabilities Act (VDA). In that Act, the Virginia State Government promises that it will not use businesses that discriminate against persons with disabilities. It promises to assure access to all of its programs, whether it operates them directly or operates them through private businesses. HB 1356 would have changed that by giving Virginia State agencies permission to do business with contractors and licensees that discriminate, starting by allowing lottery tickets to be sold at locations that are not accessible to persons with disabilities. HB 1356 would have removed Virginia’s assurance to make all of its programs accessible to people with disabilities. Thanks to Dr. Lopez and advocates like her, the bill was withdrawn “due to objections from the disability community.”
From Winter 2008 Newsletter
Volume 3, Issue 1





