Critical Utah health services on the chopping block

SALT LAKE CITY — If lawmakers think it's tough balancing the state's budget this year, they should try being disabled, a foster child or a service provider trying to survive under a series of funding cutbacks from the past three year.

"Now that's hard," Jennifer Gardner, a state foster mother and new president of the Utah Foster Adoptive Families Association said prior to testifying at an annual public hearing held Wednesday by the Joint Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee.

She was among a chorus of concerned voiced by dozens of frontline care providers who contract with the state to look after Utahns who are unable to look after themselves.

Their assertions that the most vulnerable Utahns are the most hurt by cutbacks in services weren't anything new to the panel, which is deliberating how it can maintain programs it is legally obligated and morally bound to provide while trying to adjust to a $700 million shortfall in state revenue.

The more than 50 people who signed up to speak pleaded with lawmakers to spare basic disabled and foster care services because previous cutbacks have already pushed hundreds of people's into survival mode.

Last year, $4.6 million was cut from the state Division of Services for People with Disabilities. The ripple effect is more hours of in-home health being lost and more individuals being moved to group homes or care centers.

Individuals and private agencies who are paid by the state to provide one-on-one or small group services were cut by $1.5 million, while state staff positions were trimmed by some 100 slots.

"We're beyond being extremely efficient. We're now down to services themselves," said Alan Ormsby, division director.

Person after person told lawmakers stories of small group-home closures, moves to community centers and general care fatigue to the point of "services dissipating right in front our eyes," one provider said.

Budget backfilling made up $3.5 million, but next year the gap is expected to reach $4.6 million.

Many of those with disabilities who spoke and those who spoke for them said they appreciate that lawmakers have their hands tied by an economy in crisis, but when cutbacks can sometimes mean the difference between a life worth living and barely getting by, compassion is cold comfort.

In addition, others said if the state's not careful, it will find itself in the same precarious position it was 16 years ago when a federal lawsuit was filed because the state was overloading child abuse caseworkers and not properly looking after children it had taken into state custody.