Once again, local advocates for the disabled are urging Albany to boost state funding for services for people with disabilities. It’s a repeated call specifically for the Direct Service Professionals who support these people every day.
The theme of a rally that drew hundreds from all over upstate New York to Syracuse this month, was “We Matter.”
Arc of Onondaga Executive Director Ellen Gutmaker said years of underfunding from the state has led to a staffing crisis.
"We have people on waiting lists because we don't have the staff to provide those services," Gutmaker said. "Because we can't recruit staff to do this work for this amount of money."
It’s a situation that’s forced many in this business to take on a second job, like Melisa Fernandez, a direct support professional in Syracuse for more than 20 years.
"I could honestly go to Dunkin' Donuts right now and get paid as much as I'm getting paid right now," Fernandez said. "And is that upsetting? Yeah, it is, but at the same time, you know, if you like your job enough, you make it work, but it's becoming harder and harder to make it work."
Paul Joslyn, Executive Director of AccessCNY said this is a fight advocates go through every year because the state doesn’t come through with the funding to keep these professionals on the job.
"It's only been 15 years or so where we've seen a steady decline in the pay for our direct support professionals compared to similar positions," Joslyn said. "And it's not sustainable for us."
So advocates are calling on Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state legislature to include a 3.2% cost of living raise and a $4,000 per employee direct support wage retention and enhancement payment in the upcoming budget. Assemblyman Al Stirpe said lawmakers understand the issue, but part of the problem is, that the public in general doesn’t understand what these people do.
"Elected officials would do this in an instant if everyone in their district called up and said, 'You know, you really have to do something about this,'" Stirpe said. "These people have hard jobs, they work all the time, their relationship with the people they deal with is critical. You need to pay them more."
Joslyn said this proposal would add about $300 million to a proposed $233 billion spending plan.
"This is a minuscule portion of our state budget to fix a massive problem for our most vulnerable citizens," Joslyn said.
