Office for People with Developmental Disabilities is Changing the Way Services are Funded in New York State
Recent Message from Commissioner Burke

As you may be aware the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities is changing the way services are funded in New York State. The new model is the 1115 Waiver, also known as the People's First Waiver. Changes will occur incrementally over the next 2-3 years. There are numerous forums providing families and providers with information regarding this system wide change. We highly recommend that you regularly visit the OPWDD website for up-to-date information.

Please note that The Arc of Schuyler and other providers are receiving these updates at the same time as you , therefore your service coordinators and other program staff will not have answers to questions. Again, we recommend you visit the OPWDD website. 

Message from Office for People with Developmental Disabilities Commissioner Courtney Burke

January 11, 2012

One of our most significant initiatives for 2012 is the 1115 People First Waiver.

Since last April, when the waiver process first began with a series of public events across the state, we have focused our attention on working with people throughout the system on the details and technical changes necessary to strengthen our system. But I know how easy it can be to get overwhelmed—even lost—in the many details, and believe it’s important to be honest about why the waiver is so critical.

Our system is at a financial breaking point. Thanks to the incredible advocacy of individuals and families, since the 1970s New York has become the federal government’s most funded service system, by far, in the country. However, that funding is not continuing to grow at the rate that our system is, making it difficult for us to meet the increased demand for supports and services.

To protect services, we have two realistic options. We can 1) make difficult cuts that reduce services; or 2) identify a better way of delivering care by personalizing services. Individualized care that helps us deliver better outcomes for the people we serve is the right choice.

New York’s current system was put into place to further the goals of deinstitutionalizing the state’s developmental center populations. It was a means of stimulating community-based residences and programs. To that end, the system was successful because the service capabilities of our nonprofit network have grown dramatically.

As wonderful as many aspects of our system are, there are flaws. As we know, in some cases, people who need different service arrangements are locked into an inflexible service design that consumes more resources than is necessary and does not provide the needed individualized supports. This is an extraordinarily costly process for a system that does not provide the flexibility people deserve to access the services they need—and it limits our ability to serve more people.

The goals today are different than they were 30 years ago. The 1115 waiver will raise the bar on the quality of personalized care. For instance, one of the program goals or “outcomes” that we will be looking at is employment opportunities for people with developmental disabilities. Of 126,000 individuals receiving care, approximately 9,000 are currently in some type of employment. That number can and should be much higher. The waiver will produce incentives to strengthen and expand programs and services, like meaningful employment. It will also allow for more creative living arrangements for those individuals who desire such flexibility, for instance, and it will better link acute services (e.g., hospital services) with long-term care (support services like home or respite care). These are opportunities that everyone in our service system deserves.

I want to thank the thousands of people who were involved in the waiver in so many ways throughout 2011, and hope you will continue to be involved in helping us build an even stronger and better service system for the future. We, in turn, will continue to do our best to keep the public informed and engaged, and be forthright with the changes that will be taking place, and why they are necessary to protect services moving forward.

Sincerely, Commissioner Burke

P.S. We are committed to keeping you as informed as possible about this and the many other initiatives underway. For regular updates, please visit OPWDD on Facebook. Additionally, we have developed a series of short videos in which I answer frequently asked questions about the waiver.