Texas legislation revives possibility of downsizing state schools for people with developmental disabilities

From The Dallas Morning News:

AUSTIN – Legislation to downsize state schools for the mentally disabled appears to have new life.

While a stand-alone measure has stagnated, lawmakers have added a special provision to the state budget that would move 500 people out of state schools in the next two years, while taking thousands of families off of the waiting list for community-based care.

Though the measure wouldn't close any state schools or force anyone to leave who doesn't want to, it would charge the Department of Aging and Disability Services with identifying another 1,500 state school residents over the next four years who would be better suited for less-restrictive settings. And it would create more community-based care slots for people living in private institutions and those eligible for admission to a state school.

"It's about giving people with disabilities a choice," said Sen. Bob Deuell, R-Greenville. "If you do that, you bring the state schools down to a manageable size."

The budget provision, shepherded by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Steve Ogden, follows a U.S. Justice Department report on widespread civil rights violations inside Texas' state schools for the disabled. State officials are close to signing a settlement agreement over the findings.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are working to pass reform legislation for the state's disability services system, and an emergency state school safety bill requested by Gov. Rick Perry.

But bills to close or consolidate the state schools – which drew impassioned testimony throughout the session – got little traction, the result of tough opposition from state school families and lawmakers with facilities in their district.

Supporters of the state schools for the disabled, who made repeated trips to Austin this session to defeat bills similar to this budget provision, said lawmakers are making a huge mistake.

They say the measure will distress settled families, forcing people from the state schools into underfunded, poorly monitored community care settings. They argued that the whole premise behind moving people into the community – that it's cheaper and more efficient than institutional settings – is based on bad math. They say the cost is nearly equivalent.

"I have been to group homes, and they are horror shows. The for-profit model is hurting this population," said Michele Arnold, the legal guardian of a young man living happily at the Richmond State School. "The people who are going to be forced into them are those who have been abandoned by their families and have no one to speak up for them."

Advocates for shuttering the state schools say the budget provision is as close as they can get. And they say the writing is on the wall. If 2,000 people leave the state schools in the next four to six years, they say, they don't know how lawmakers will justify keeping all 13 state facilities open.

"We're doing cartwheels," said Jeff Garrison-Tate, president of the nonprofit Community Now! and father of a disabled daughter. "This is everything we've been working for."