State Budget Update as of Saturday, May 16

Appropriations Deadlock Continues, Triggers Likely Delays in Payments to Home Care and Personal Care Members The Appropriations Committee spent Friday in closed-door negotiations over remaining issues, adjourning for the weekend without an agreement. State employee health insurance is one of the last issues in contention, with Republicans insisting that any wellness incentive require some payment of the individual premium. The continuing deadlock is already triggering delays in payments to providers, and will likely delay payments to MSEA-SEIU members working in home care or personal care, as the State runs out of funds for the current budget year. We do not expect any further developments until late on Monday, perhaps Monday night. As usual, it will be important to have members in the Appropriations Committee hearing room Monday evening.

Congresswoman Chellie Pingree in Augusta Tomorrow

Congresswoman Chellie Pingree will in Augusta tomorrow. Her first stop is at Shaw's on Western Avenue from 10:30 am until noon. She will then be at Longfellow's Greenhouses in Manchester from 1 pm to 2:30 pm. If there are 771 workers shopping at Shaw's or at Longfellow's tomorrow, stop and talk to her about the work you do. Long-term care is being overlooked in the current health care reform. Tell Chellie that it needs to be included in any health care reform that Congress is working on. With the Direct Care Alliance in Washington, DC a couple of weeks ago, I got to talk to Chellie about this. Please see previous post on it. I urge anyone in the Augusta area tomorrow, shopping at either location, to plan your shopping around the times she'll be at either store. Talk to Chellie. She is very personable and will listen to what you have to say. Take the chance. This is a lot easier than trying to talk to her while she's in DC! Trust me on that one!

Reminder - LOCAL 771 Bargaining Forum Tomorrow

Local 771 is having its first of two bargaining forums tomorrow in Bangor. The meeting starts at 10 am. It is located at the blue Maine DOT building on the Hogan Road. Both bargaining units of 771, Alpha One and Home Care for Maine, will be negotiating contracts in the upcoming months. Home Care for Maine's contract is due to expire on June 30th. Alpha One's expired last year. For our union to be strong, and have a powerful voice at the bargaining table, we need members to come to both meetings. We need members with ideas and proposals that will make working conditions better. We need members to put forth these ideas to get them into the contracts. I urge members in the Bangor area to come out to this very important meeting tomorrow. Here's an example of how our union is working for us. Recently there was a problem with Home Care for Maine workers not getting their February stipend in the last stipend payment. This was brought to my attention. Apparently the agency had under 1515 billable hours for the month of February, and thought it was not bound to pay its workers the $0.30 stipend per hour worked for that month. I passed this information on to our field representative, CJ Betit. CJ looked at the contract. His stand was that the additional $0.15 per hour was paid only when the agency reached that 1515 billable hours. If the agency was under the 1515 billable hours in any given month, the agency was still to pay the $0.30 per hour for that month. CJ got in touch with Mollie Baldwin, Home Care for Maine's CEO. She took another look at the contract and saw Article 12, the article pertaining to wages and how the stipends are paid, and realized that a mistake had been made. She is going to make good on the error and workers should receive their February stipend in the payroll run today, payment available on Monday, May 18th. Please see the May 12th post on the stipend issue. Without our union working for us, we wouldn't have the stipend much less the means to resolve this issue. The stipend doesn't seem like much, but to many workers it is. They count on that extra money they receive every quarter for their hard work with the people they serve.

MaineCare Programs that may be Affected by Budget Cuts

Thursday, May 14, 2009 Council members: The Appropriations Committee is considering a proposal for another major cut in the budget for the next two years that could cause serious harm to people with disabilities in Maine - legislators need to hear how their constituents feel about this proposal today. Please send an email or call and leave a voice message for your legislators to let them know this proposal would hurt people with disabilities and may result in greater cost to taxpayers if services are not provided when they are needed. (One example of this is early intervention services.) Here is a little more information about this proposal: Late last night during the discussions about the biennial budget, the Republicans proposed a five percent cut to "optional services" under MaineCare. It would be up to DHHS to decide how to limit services to stay within the lower budget amount, but it would be over and above cuts that have already been approved for several items within the "optional services" category. Large cuts have already been made in Children's Mental Health Services, the Home- and Community-Based waiver program, Children's residential services (private non-medical institutions), targeted case management, pharmacy services, and others. Here is a listing of the categories under the "Optional Services" of MaineCare - persons with disabilities are receiving services in every one of these categories, and would likely face limits on the services or not be able to get the services at all, if these cuts are included in the budget for the next two years. I have listed all of the services, so you can see how many of the services people depend on are considered "optional services". Adult Family Care Services Ambulatory Care Clinics Ambulatory Surgical Center Services Ambulance Services Consumer Directed Attendant Services Targeted Case Management Chiropractic Services Community Support Services Home and Community Based Servcies for Elderly and People with Disabilities Home and Community Based Services for Persons with Mental Retardation or Autistic Disorders Home and Community Based Services for those with Physical Disabilities Developmental and Behavioral Evaluation Clinics Day Habilitation Services Dental Services Day Health Services Early Intervention Services Hearing Aid Dealers Audiology Services Home Based Mental Health Services Home Health Services Day Treatment Services Hospice Services Psychiatric Facility Services (Spring Harbor, Acadia) Durable Medical Supplies Prosthetics & Orthotics Screening/Genetic Testing Mental Health Services Social Work Substance Abuse Treatment Psychological Services Nursing Facility (for anyone under 21 years old) Occupational Therapy Vision Services Pharmacy Physical Therapy Podiatrist Services Private Duty Nursing Personal Care Services Private Non-medical Institutions Rehabilitative Services (Brain Injury) School-based Rehabilitative Services Speech and Hearing Services Speech Pathology Services Transportation Services Boarding Home and Related VD Screening If you have any questions about this, feel free to send me an email, Julia.J.Bell@maine.gov or you can call Kathleen or Rachel at the Council office. I am sitting in the Appropriations Committee hearing room, so it is hard for me to take phone calls. (Note- this would be a good time to ask your friends and family members to make a call or send an email as well - this next week is going to be very challenging as the Legislature tries to finalize and pass the budget for the next two years, and any of the Senators and/or Representatives may make a suggestion that could be very harmful to people with disabilities. They need to be reminded how important these services are.) Julia Julia Bell Executive Director Maine Developmental Disabilities Council

Home Care for Maine's response to Quarterly Stipend Issue

This clearly was an error on our part. We neglected to read the second paragraph and only looked at paying the $.45 per hour and providing at least 1515 hours on average per day. We will send out the $.30 per hour for February on the May 15,2009 in a dedicated payroll to active employees. This means we will mail out direct deposits and checks this Friday and the pay date will Monday, May 18,2009. Any employee who has a stipend calculated to be less than $5.00 will receive that amount in the next payroll sent out May 25, 2009 to limit on the banking transaction fee for this small check amount. We truly apologize for this oversight.

Direct Care Worker Wages Bill, LD 1364, Carried Over

The work session on LD 1364, the wages bill for direct care workers, was last Thursday, April 30th. I am very happy to report that the bill was carried over to next session. This means that it is not dead, right in committee. I take this as a small victory. Again, a little bump in that uphill climb to gain better wages for workers. Health and Human Services Co-Chair Senator Brannigan mentioned LD 1059 in his comments. That was pleasing in that the HHS Committee is aware of the insurance bill. Senator Brannigan said that maybe the two bills could be combined, providing better pay and health insurance to workers. I had that same thought when I was in Washington D.C. with the Direct Care Alliance earlier in the week. It is kind of scary when a committee chair-person thinks the same way I do! It appears to me that both bills may compete for the same Medicaid enhanced reimbursement. I would hate for one bill to get shot down because the other won the funding. They should go hand-in-hand. This is an idea I have not mentioned further to those on the Direct Care Worker Coalition yet. I figure with both bills carried over, I can buy a little time and work on follow-up with Maine's congressional delegation on the issues that the Direct Care Alliance raised with our legislative visits. Again, good news on the wages bill. It is carried over to next session. It is not dead! Thanks to my co-workers and colleagues for being at 1364's hearing! We could not have won the small victory without you!

My Trip to DC with the Driect Care Alliance: A Home Care Worker’s Report

I just got back from a trip to DC with the Direct Care Alliance. It was a great start to achieving the FLSA rule change and to achieving health care reform that keeps direct care workers in the conversation. I think we started something that will just get bigger and keep raising awareness. What is unique is that the Direct Care Alliance is having us workers talk to members of Congress. They need to hear from us - not the policy experts or service providers, but the hands on, day-to-day workers. I never would have thought a couple of years ago that I’d be on Capitol Hill, talking with my congressional delegation about my job and the tough work issues I and my fellow workers face every day. The DCA has made that possible for me. I got the opportunity to personally thank Congresswoman Linda Sanchez and Congressman Mike Michaud for sponsoring our “Dear Colleague” letter to Secretary of Labor Solis. I am so honored that I got the chance to do that.

Seated, DCA Board Member, Dennis Fitzgibbons; L to R, Helen Hanson, Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, Julie Moulton

But the highlight of the visit for me was getting to talk with Congresswoman Chellie Pingree herself. Congresswoman Pingree was very supportive of the workforce and agreed direct care workers need to be included in health care reform. She also wanted to know more about the FLSA. She sounded as if she’ll probably sign the letter. We encouraged her to talk to her congressional colleagues about the FLSA, and we’ll do some follow-up with her. We were also scheduled to visit Senator Susan Collins, but that visit got cancelled because her health care staffer, Priscilla Hanley, was in a hearing on the swine flu problem. But after talking with Jackie Merkel, another of the direct care workers in town for the visits, Julie Moulton and I decided to go to Senator Collins’ office anyway. Jackie said we should go so the senator would know that we were in DC and see the packet from her Maine constituents and the Direct Care Alliance. So we did just that. We also told the staffer that we would follow up with Patricia Hanley from home, which we plan to start doing next week. The next visit for us was with Senator Olympia Snowe’s health care staffer, Bill Pewen. We were concerned about our flight so we stopped by Senator Snowe’s office early. The staffer we talked to was great. She got Bill Pewen’s assistant, Scott Nolan, who talked with us for about half an hour. The meeting went well, despite the fact that Scott did not know much about direct care workers. Julie kept hammering the FSLA and I kept hammering that the direct care workforce must be part of health care reform, as we are a vital part of the health care system. Julie told Scott that workers in home care are not guaranteed minimum wage and paid overtime. She said that it is a shame because this workforce is vital to keeping elders and disabled healthy and home, where they want to be. He was surprised when she told him that someone working as a cashier at Wal Mart is guaranteed at least minimum wage, but home care workers aren’t. She was fantastic! At first when we talked about health care reform, Scott talked about how reform will focus on the health insurance industry, possibly drawing some nationwide standards as to what is covered. He said long term care is under the radar in the current plans for health care reform, meaning that it is not included at all. He gave us a brief overview of what health care reform might look like, saying that it might require all employers to purchase health insurance for their employees and give employees a subsidy to help pay for the coverage if they can’t afford what their employers offer. To me, it sounded a lot like what the state of Massachusetts has done. Maine’s Dirigo Health came into the conversation, much to my surprise. I told Scott that whenever I’m involved with trying to gain health insurance for direct care workers back home, someone always brings up Dirigo and says it was designed for workers like me. I tell them yes it is, but it simply is not working. Agencies like the one I used to work for cannot get on Dirigo because they have too many employees. And individuals who wish to get on to Dirigo and who need a subsidy to help pay for it also have a hard time getting on it. I told him that every year, the savings offset payment is figured, and then it is challenged in court by organizations like the Maine State Chamber of Commerce and Anthem, and that drags out the process even further. I also told him that I was a bit miffed when the stimulus provided help to laid off workers by helping them with COBRA payments. I told him that I am working, still employed, and cannot get health insurance through my job. It is such an injustice. Helen Hanson Home care worker