From left, Laura Howell, CEO of Maryland Association of Community Services; Ande Kolp, executive director for The Arc of Maryland; and Mat Rice, executive director for People on the Go of Maryland, testify Thursday at a Senate Budget and Taxation Committee hearing. (Photo by Danielle J. Brown/Maryland Matters)
Members of the disability community told a Senate panel Thursday that they feel they’re being left out of the conversations surrounding potentially huge budget cuts to the state agency responsible for administering resources for their community.
“The community is here to work with the department — we’re here to be a voice. But I don’t know that we feel that we’ve been heard,” said Mat Rice, executive director for People on the Go of Maryland, in testimony before Senate Budget and Taxation Committee.
“We ask you to please consider the full impact of these cost-containment measures and not to turn back the clock on a marginalized community that has made significant civil rights progress,” he said.
The cost-containment measure he was referring to is a proposed $200 million cut to the budget for the Developmental Disabilities Administration, one of the largest hits in a fiscal 2026 budget that has to close a projected $3 billion spending gap.
When he unveiled what he called his “growth agenda” budget last week, Gov. Wes Moore (D) said it included $1 billion in new revenues, including $500 million from the state’s Rainy Day Fund, but $2 billion in cuts and government efficiencies. One of the biggest single cuts was to the DDA, which state Budget Secretary Helene Grady said has been growing at an unsustainable rate, “from $850 million in fiscal 2023 to nearly $1.5 billion over just two years.”
Disabilities community ‘distressed,’ ‘scared’ by proposed $200 million cut to state services
About 20,500 Marylanders with developmental disabilities got state support last year to help their families afford services, usually through a Medicaid waiver that also brings in federal dollars.
The waivers provide two avenues for services — a community model where people join an established organization for disability care or a self-directed model where the waiver recipient or their family hires individual employees for services.
The proposed cuts hit several programs and resources currently provided through the DDA, according to documents from the Department of Health. Many of those proposed cuts would restrict current rate increases for certain providers or programs, such as geograpic rate differential for work in cetain counties in central Maryland, and one-on-one care for high-needs patients.
Health Secretary Laura Herrera Scott told the Senate committee Thursday that there are regular stakeholder meetings where members of the public can voice their concerns to the department. But advocates and members of the developmental disability community said they do not feel that their voices and concerns are not being prioritized by the department as the legislature works on next year’s budget.
The advocates worry that service providers, whether they are in a community model or self-directed care, will be asked to perform the same services for less pay, which could lead to personnel leaving the field to find better paying positions.
“Volatility is bad for people with developmental disabilities, and these proposals absolutely create volatility in our world,” said Laura Howell, CEO of Maryland Association of Community Services, in her testimony.
“We’re talking about real people, real families, real direct-support professionals — and they have to be at the forefront of anything that happens related to the DDA budget questions,” Howell said.
Herrera Scott said that in addition to regular stakeholder meetings, the department is also developing a communication plan for providers should the proposed cuts go into effect.
“We will have to work very closely with our community partners in all of this – have them at the table to help us design a system that would allow for the transition for these cost-containment measures to be effectuated,” she told the committee. “We will be communicating with the community in the very near future to set up these work group meetings.”
But Ande Kolp, executive director of the Arc of Maryland, said communications with the department have been infrequent over the last year, and usually limited to 30-minute sessions.
“I’ve been in the field for over 30 years, and we used to be able to call and have conversations and work through issues … that’s been absent since January 2024,” she told the committee. “It’s been very different.”
Rice agreed that conversations with the agencies are too short to lay out the disability communities concerns regarding the budget and other issues in the DDA program.
“Can you really have meaningful dialogue in a meaningful way when you engage with the department … in a 30-minute meeting?” he asked. “My answer to that … would be no.”
The budget process is ongoing, and Kolp is hopeful that members of the committee appreciate the concerns raised by advocates.
“I think we have a lot of attention from this committee, so that’s the good news,” she said after the meeting. “We have a lot of people who get it, either because they have just been with us for several years, or they have a family member with a disability in their lives, so it matters to them. That’s a really good place to start with this.
“The department – I think we really, really desire to be at the table with them to come up with some solutions, because I think we have some ideas of efficiency,” Kolp said. “We just need our offer to be accepted.”