This year’s budget negotiations resulted in significant — and long overdue — progress for Pennsylvanians with intellectual disabilities and autism (ID/A). While there’s still more work to do, Gov. Josh Shapiro delivered more results for this often-forgotten community than any other state executive in recent memory.

The budget makes significant investments to finally eliminate, over the course of several years, the state’s emergency waitlist for services. But there were casualties in the budgeting process, and these cuts to other parts of the ID/A budget will make achieving long-term stability more difficult.

The funds to eliminate the waitlist — for services the state is legally obligated to provide — will be disbursed over the next five years, eventually addressing the statewide 6,000-person emergency list. The first pool of $74.8 million will immediately provide support waivers for 1,500 people. These waivers pay for services like speech therapy, specialty transportation, in-home care and employment assistance.

But providing this care will hinge on addressing a larger issue: Recruiting, hiring and retaining enough staff to administer the specialty care people with ID/A need. Known as direct support professionals (DSPs), they do the challenging and intimate work of caring, around the clock, for people who require professional help to thrive.

For years, DSP wages, currently reimbursed by the state at less than $17 an hour, have been too low to attract and retain talent. As a result, even when families receive waivers, care isn’t guaranteed. Without enough DSPs, families will just find themselves in a different portion of the same pipeline, still waiting or receiving only some of the services they need.

Mr. Shapiro has made some headway improving DSP wages, allocating another combined $280 million in state and federal funds to boost reimbursement rates. This will raise wages by 7% – not the 12% originally promised, but a welcome step nonetheless.

But there are other ways to address abysmal DSP wages: HB661, introduced by House Majority Whip Dan Miller, D-Mt. Lebanon, would tie reimbursement rates to market conditions including inflation, automatically adjusting them each year. Currently, reimbursement rates are updated in a convoluted process only every three years.

HB661 would fully liberate DSP wages from Harrisburg’s yearly budget battles, and guarantee fairer wages moving forward — but the bill has been languishing in a Human Services subcommittee for over a year. In tandem with Mr. Shapiro’s budget investment, HB661 would ensure that families on the emergency waitlist actually receive their approved professional care.

Cutting down the emergency waitlist for services for people with ID/A is a massive achievement that should be celebrated. This represents the largest investment in disability services and DSP wages in the commonwealth’s history.

But the defining promise of this investment will only be fulfilled with continued funding over the next five years, and with the proper compensation of DSPs. Mr. Shapiro’s commitment to the ID/A community — and the legislature’s — must last for longer than this budget cycle.

First Published: August 9, 2024, 5:30 a.m.