Preparing for a New Year

2017-07-20T00:00:00

Dear SPIN family,

You are a team like no other. I often say that when I fight for SPIN, I feel the strength of your voices and quality of your work behind me. Since I last wrote on June 1st, you have worked tirelessly to advocate for better funding and to prepare for changes in our services. Fiscal year 2018 will bring new opportunities and challenges. Through it all, I promise open, honest and consistent communication.

We achieved a victory, but the fight is not over.

Governor Wolf and the Pennsylvania legislature heard your demands for better funding: the state budget for fiscal year 2018 is the best we’ve ever seen for intellectual disability and autism services. However, just because Pennsylvania’s budget has more funds for services, it does not yet mean that additional money will come to SPIN.  Here’s why:

Our funding is based on the rates we are paid for services. While the state has increased the size of the overall intellectual disability budget, they have decided to make the rates the same for every organization—whether they operate in Philadelphia or in more rural areas of the state. This may sound fair at first, but the cost of living and operating in Philadelphia is much higher. As a result, rural areas of the state will see a large increase, while SPIN will stay the same in some services and see a decrease in others.

Our rates went up for the following services:

• Home and Community Services 

• Day Services

Our rates remained at the same level for the following services:

• Employment Services

• All Children’s Services

• Most outpatient services and Autism Center for Excellence

Our rates went down for the following services:

• Residential Services (by far our largest revenue source)

We are already taking action.

Because of the changes in rates, we expect a reduction in revenue. We are fighting the reduction on two fronts. First, the leadership team is working to appeal our rates. We won our appeal last year, so we are optimistic. But, winning an appeal is not the same as getting better rates in the first place. We are also fighting to get rates we can count on—rates that will increase wages for staff.

I want to hear from you.

I will keep you informed about our progress, but I also want to hear from you. From July 31st to September 29th, we will be holding open roundtables. These are safe spaces where you can share your questions, concerns and updates with me and other SPIN leaders:

I believe in you and I believe in SPIN. Thank you for all that you do,

Kathy