MCBDD approves $25.8M budget

Staff report

AUSTINTOWN

The Mahoning County Board of Developmental Disabilities has approved a 2012 budget of $25.8 million. By comparison, the 2011 budget for all funds was $24.7 million.

Board Superintendent Larry Duck said the 2012 budget includes a reduction of $1.4 million in local levy revenue and state-subsidy receipts because of the loss of tangible-personal- property tax and state funding cuts during the most recently approved biennium state budget.

The 2012 budget was OK’d at a recent board meeting.

Duck said the 2012 budget continues two client-care initiatives that began in 2010.

He said matching funds were included in the budget to fund Medicaid waivers for children (clients under age 22) with intensive needs. Eighty waivers for children already have been obtained, and plans are to seek an additional 80 to 100 waivers over the next two years for children on the waiting list. The funding will enable families to receive additional assistance in the form of in-home respite care, equipment and home modifications such as ramps and accessible bathrooms.

The waiver program enables the Board of Developmental Disabilities to pay about 37 percent of the cost of client care and shift the cost to Medicaid, instead of paying 100 percent of the cost for waiver clients with local funds.

The board also continued its participation in a community employment grant program funded through the Ohio Rehabilitation Services Commission. The board authorized a $50,000 matching-funds payment to ORSC in September 2010 that draws down an additional $190,000 in federal funding to pay for community employment opportunities for developmentally disabled adults, Duck said.

He said direct-service contracts for 2012 are nearly $200,000 less than 2011 but do not represent a decrease in client services. He noted a shifting of the payments to provider agencies to Medicaid funding rather than 100 percent paid out of local levy funds.

Major contracts approved by the board include:

Advanced Rehab Management (doing business as Tudor Rehabilitation), $80,000 each for occupational and physical-therapy services.

Burdman Group Inc. (Compass Family & Community Services), $175,000 for vocational programming for adult-services clients.

MASCO Inc. General Agreement and Client Aide Program, $275,000 for oversight of the client employment, payroll and client activities program at the MCBDD Bev & Meshel workshops and the Javit Court Seniors Program.

Transit Services Inc., $280,000 for transportation services.

North East Ohio Network (NEON), $300,000 to provide financial services in processing Family Support Services and other Medicaid-related financial transactions; to pay an hourly rate for backup major, unusual incident investigations, quality-assurance-nursing services and other administrative support services. NEON also is the fiscal agent for the MCBDD when transferring local Medicaid matching funds from the county board to the state.

In other action, the board awarded a contract of $160,900 to CCI North Coast for two new, 14-passenger shuttle buses with wheelchair lifts.