MAHONING COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Officials meet with MRDD board

The meeting was a follow-up to complaints heard by the commissioners.
YOUNGSTOWN -- A Mahoning County official came away from a meeting with mental retardation board representatives satisfied they are doing their best to meet the needs of their clients.
But Commissioner Anthony Traficanti said he will still attend a meeting tonight at Leonard Kirtz School in Austintown scheduled to update parents and guardians about funding issues and how taxpayer money is being administered by the Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities board and its superintendent, Larry Duck.
Commissioners heard complaints about the agency board and Duck at their meeting last week.
The commissioners met Tuesday with Duck and some MRDD board members to hear firsthand what the board is doing to meet clients' needs.
Budget concerns
Traficanti said Duck and the board confirmed that there is a possibility that the MRDD's Rayen Avenue workshop will close this year because of funding cuts. The board won't know that for sure, however, until the state fiscal budget goes into effect July 1.
The MRDD expects a $3 million to $4 million loss this year because of the end of the Community Alternative Funding System program. CAFS is a type of Medicaid reimbursement for services to disabled MRDD-eligible individuals and disabled schoolchildren.
It pays for adult day programs such as the MRDD's three workshops, transportation and other services. The program ends June 30, resulting in the loss of $200 million statewide for MRDD boards and public schools.
Another complaint raised by parents was the $2.2 million renovation at the board's Javit Court facility for its day-care center for senior citizens, Traficanti said.
Parents were concerned that the board was spending money on that renovation and other work while laying people off because of the funding cuts.
Duck and the board explained the money came from U.S. Treasury notes as well as some of the MRDD's capital improvement reserves. No operating money was used for the work, Traficanti said he was told.
Bus debate
The commissioners also heard more detailed information concerning the purchase and use of white buses to transport adult MRDD clients.
Last week, two of the parents criticized that decision to use the white buses. They said yellow buses should be used to transport all clients because traffic will stop in both directions when emergency lights and flashers are turned on.
Traficanti said state law requires the use of yellow buses for people up to 21.
The MRDD board can use the white buses, which are equipped with flashers and signs noting that the bus makes frequent stops, to transport people 21 and older.
Traficanti said the board saw the white buses as a dignity issue because the clients using them aren't children.
The commissioner added that Duck said 99 percent of the stops the white buses make for clients are curbside, and in some circumstances, the buses pull into the clients' driveways.
Audits
"I found Mr. Duck and his board very informative and I was satisfied with the meeting," Traficanti said, adding that five of the seven MRDD board members have children or clients in the program.
Traficanti said Duck told him he had no problem with a performance audit being done for MRDD, but the agency has had four or five audits done recently for various aspects of their programs, and none have shown any improprieties.
Duck told the commissioners those audit reports will be made available to the public to drum up support for a 3-mill renewal levy that will appear on the November general election ballot.
That levy brings in about $11 million a year.