New AZ Supreme Court Ruling..Taking Funds from First Things First Ruled ILLEGAL!!!!

Sorry I haven't had too much to post lately, things have been quiet, and our services are continuing so far there hasn't been much to say : )

I did find this article in the Republic today, what I've speculated all along is true, the legilsature attempting to take accrued interest from First Things First to balance their budget was ILLEGAL and WENT AGAINST THE AZ CONSTITUTION THEY WERE PROTECTED FUNDS!

This is good news!

http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/azelections/articles/2009/07/24/20090724arizonabudget24-ON.html

It looks like the Budget has Passed

There is an article in the AZ Republic that states Gov. Brewer has signed a new budget in. Here is the link:

http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/azelections/articles/2009/07/08/20090708budget-signed.html

According to the article, funding for the Department of Education, DES, and Department of Health all recieved funding, but the state's budget is still about $2 Billion out of balance, so we'll see where it goes from here, it certainly seems like good news, but like everything else, I will believe it when I see it, but so far, it sounds good.

Has anyone had any hearings yet? If so, how did they go?

Interesting Studies on Parents in the NICU and Post-Traumatic Stress

Here is a link to a recent article published on Parents in the NICU and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder:

http://www.lpch.org/aboutus/news/releases/2009/ptsd.html

It looks like there has been quite a bit of research on this topic.


Here is another link to a related article on parental stress of families with high risk babies in the NICU. There are a lot more, but there isn't a link I can post for the list, go to the end of this article, at the bottom there is a bar that says "Display" with a drop-down menu, click on the drop down and go to "related articles" it will pull up a lot more info. I know this is specific to infants in the NICU, but as I read on, I do get the sense that this could also apply to all parents of special needs children, feel free to read them and let me know what you think.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16684937?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Don't You Wish Everyone Would Just Grow Up?

I'm sorry I haven't posted lately, really things have been quiet and there has not been too much to post. I've seen in the news all kinds of info on the budget and the fighting that has been going on with the legislature. There's been arguing, walking out, and threats of lawsuits. I honestly have no idea what is going to happen nobody does, there has been talk that the government might just shut down if nobody can agree. My first reaction was great! Lets shut everything down, that will solve the problem! You'll show everyone who's boss won't you? Even if it is at the expense of the public you are supposed to serve.

It reminds me of my son sitting on the floor refusing to move and having a tantrum because he didn't get what he wanted, or two children fighting over the same toy.

It also reminds me of the car scenes in the movies when they would play "chicken" have two cars run full speed at each other, and the first one to turn the car out of the way was the "chicken".

I just hope someone turns before the state crashes.

Deadline for Public Comment is Today!

If you haven't already commented on the proposed changes to AZEIP program, the deadline is 4 PM today. If you haven't please submit your comments to:
Written comment may be submitted electronically to AllAzeip2@des.gov ; mail to 3839 North Third Street, Suite 304, Phoenix, AZ 85012; or faxed to (602) 200-9820 any time prior to 4PM

All comments are to be "considered" before any changes are made, I'm not too sure what they mean by "considered" but it is gratifying to know your opinions are on record and are supposed to be reviewed.

I'm hoping that they won't attempt to implement a Family Cost Participation policy as it stands, they have not done any of the leg work that they should have to ensure that it would even work if they implemented it. As it stands now, they would probably loose money if they could even get organized enough to implement it.

Anyone that wants to use the content from this blog in their communications is welcome to do so.

Last Night's Meeting

I went to the meeting last night, and this time my husband was in tow, since he is a CPA he had another interesting perspective on what isn't being done, brought out things that were not known and things that have not been considered in the proposed Family Cost Policy.

• There has been no study as to how much money will be brought in, nobody how knows how many families will be effected or if the state can even bring enough money to make this worth it
• The policy states they use an AZ tax return to calculate your income for the program, but what they don't realize is that these returns cap the amount of losses you are allowed to report on them. For instance, you could have over a million dollars in investment losses, but you are only allowed to report $3000 of it on your return
• They have not looked at any other avenues or means of calculating someone's income, they have not looked at county or federal programs equations, or even private industry (like the mortgage industry to calculate income vs debt ratio).
• There is no accurate way to inform families how much they will wind up having to pay in the long run
• They need to do a study to see if it is even feasible, it did not seem like they had plans to do so
• In the policy it stated that if parents don't pay, then they refer it to a department within the state that will start a collections process, which means that parent's wages can be garnished, tax returns withheld etc. (they did state that this was not supposed to happen, but I'm not sure what they expect when you refer these situations to that department, do they expect that they would have the paperwork just sit there?) but funny, the policy doesn't mention this at all. If it did I can tell you it could be a huge deterrent for parents, especially in times where our job situations and structures are so fragile, why would you even think of agreeing to something like that or have something hanging like that over your head? It's ridiculous
• They seem to expect that service coordinators will collect the financial data. As a former Social Worker, I can tell you right now that is out of their scope of practice, Social Workers and Educators are not accountants, if they wanted to be accountants for the most part, they would be accountants, it pays better. I can only speak for myself, but I can tell you one of the reasons I was drawn to the Social Work profession in the first place was because of my LACK of aptitude for accounting and numbers. I asked if there were aware of any service coordinators that had financial or accounting experience in their background, the answer was no.
• There was also the fact of discussing how the info would be collected and transported, service coordinators do their paperwork by hand, does that mean they sit there with a calculator? Do they take a copy of your tax return, put it in a file in their car and drive it around all day until they come back to the office? What about coordinators that work from home? That hasn't been answered yet.
• The policy states that parents are supposed to have an idea of the cost (or at least know the percentage they will be responsible for) before they sign an IFSP, how can that be possible, especially when there is a waiting list for services, nobody knows how long it will take to put thing in place, and different providers can charge different rates? What if you move? Different geographic areas have different rates.
• If children are on AHCCCS they will provide their services instead of AZEIP or DDD. I asked if all providers were able to bill AHCCCS, not all AZEIP providers are contracted with AHCCCS, the answer was to just get another provider or help your current provider contract with them! WHY IS THAT OUR ROLE? NOT ALL PARENTS EVEN KNOW WHAT THIS STUFF MEANS BUT ARE SUPPOSED TO TELL OUR PROVIDERS WHO TO CONTRACT WITH? What about continuity of care? That would be out the window too.
• There does not seem to be any planned outreach to providers to assist in the process of transitioning to working with AHCCCS instead of AZEIP or DDD.

Of course I asked if someone was responsible for 100% of the state's cost, why would they bother being in the program? They told me that they would get service coordination and support for free.

GREAT! They will coordinate services that families will not be receiving because they can't afford to be or aren't able to participate in the program! Good for them! Let's document how far behind these children get because of a lack of services, it will give parents some ammunition if they want to sue the state later. BRILLIANT!

Wait? How can you coordinate services if there aren't any services to coordinate?

Darned if I know!

PLEASE PLEASE if you live in the Tucson area attend tonight's meeting:

May 28, 2009 4:00-6:00 p.m.
Himmel Park Branch Library Meeting Room 1035 N. Treat Avenue Tucson, AZ 85716

I won't be traveling to Tucson to be there (as fun as it would be to travel with a 20 month old in the car for 3 hours to go a meeting and back again) but I would love for someone who can go to send me the info on the meeting, any updates and let me know how it went, I will be more than happy to post it.

Hearing Reminder, in Phoenix Today from 4PM to 6PM

I was on vacation, so I apologize that I didn't get a chance to post the reminder sooner, the hearing about the proposed changes to the AZEIP program in regards to family cost participation will be held today starting at 4PM in the Yucca Library Meeting Room 5648 N. 15th Avenue Phoenix, AZ 85015

PLEASE PLEASE try to attend this meeting and make your comments, there were very few parents at the last one.