I had an excellent meeting with Ronnie Cohn, Ligas Court Monitor to catch up on important Ligas issues. The Court Monitor was in town for a meeting with the attorneys, a Ligas Family Advocacy event and testified a the Senate Human Services Committee hearing on Ligas and the Direct Support Professional recruitment and retention crisis.
Monday I will have the pleasure to meet in person the new Director of the Illinois Council on Developmental Disabilities, Kimberly Mercer-Schleider.
Tuesday I head to Orlando for our national convention so I will be out of the office next week.
Below are my comments on the bidding of Independent Service Coordination including The Arc’s Position on Support Coordination and a national survey on case management ratios.
Tony
Dear Director Fenton:
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the development of the proposal for statewide Independent Service Coordination (ISC).
Please consider the following as the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) is being drafted:
- Be advised the creation of non-conflictual, freestanding independent service coordination statewide was a major outcome to the settlement discussions and Bogard Consent Decree. As a result, the state now has this important service but we need to reiterate the importance of non-conflictual, freestanding independent service coordination statewide as the basis of the NOFO. Illinois needs to remain compliant with the consent decree and now the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) regulations for home and community based services.
- In light of the new CMS regulations, it would seem that there is a need to expand and not consolidate individual service coordination. The responsibilities required by CMS and the recommendations of the Life Choices Initiative certainly require additional individual service coordinators.
Tony Paulauski
Executive Director
The Arc of Illinois
20901 S. LaGrange Rd. Suite 209
Frankfort, IL 60423
815-464-1832 (OFFICE)
Tony@thearcofil.org