The Moline Dispatch/Rock Island Argus has put the unpaid bills information for the state of Illinois into a searchable online database. Go to billpay.qconline.com.
When the state of Illinois drags its feet on paying bills, those who have the least suffer the most.
That's the view human services agencies around Quincy have taken as they await state payments whose arrival appears to be far from certain.
"I just can't believe that it's gotten to the point that human services are being put on the chopping block," Glenda Farkas, executive director of the West Central Illinois Center for Independent Living, said. "Human beings are the ones that make up the state, the ones that are the future of the state, and it seems like they're the ones who are being sacrificed in this process."
As of Sept. 8, the state of Illinois owed the Center for Independent Living $33,986.46, according to a database of state figures compiled by the Illinois Associated Press. Farkas said that figure doesn't reflect the September bills the center sent to the state. The West Central Center for Independent Living helps disabled people live independently.
"You can safely add another $15,000," she said. "For the past couple of years, you're just fighting to keep your head above water."
Other human services agencies around the area are facing a similar bill backlog. Because the majority of their services to the poor, needy and handicapped are free to the public and theoretically paid for by the state, they can't afford to terminate their state contracts.
The upshot is that it has become more difficult for those agencies to provide those services.
Cornerstone: Foundations for Families is owed $74,458.15 -- reflecting bills that had not been submitted by Sept. 8, when the Illinois AP showed that the agency was owed $48,472.28.
The Quincy agency provides counseling and psychiatric services to individuals and families, along with casework services designed to prevent abuse and neglect in high-risk families. Executive Director John Hirner said it's currently getting by on paid services the state doesn't fund and on a line of credit, the high interest on which it cannot charge to the state.
Cornerstone hasn't raised the fees for any of its services in two years, even though the state was eight months behind on payments at one point last year.
"We understand that right now it's not easy for lots of people, so we've held the line on the rates we're charging for our services for that reason," Hirner said.
The CIL also has not raised its rates, Farkas said, mostly because its mission is to provide free services to handicapped Western Illinois residents who often cannot pay. Charging for services to make up for the state's deficit "would be a major restructuring," she said.
Instead, the agency has cut services. It often sends multiple employees together on trips to meet with clients. There have been no recent layoffs, but the CIL cut two positions a couple of years ago that Farkas said it likely will not replace.
Great River Recovery Resources, which provides substance abuse and behavioral health services, increased its fees by 5 percent in July. Executive Director Ron Howell said that price increase fell in line with the agency's regular schedule of fee increases and doesn't make up for the massive state deficit, particularly since paid services constitute only about 23 to 25 percent of the agency's income.
"You essentially have to price the product out of accessibility to make up for this kind of deficit," Howell said.
According to the AP database, the state owes Recovery Resources $109,464.12. Howell said September billing adds anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000 to that amount. It's owed more than almost any other Quincy nonprofit in the broad human services category. It has seen virtually none of the money it was scheduled to receive in fiscal 2012.
The database also shows that Transitions of Western Illinois is owed $633,586, but Executive Director Mike Rein said the state actually owes a little more than $2 million.
Transitions provides care and training for people with developmental disabilities and counseling for those with mental or dependency problems. Transitions also is a vendor, working under contract to do laundry for the Illinois Veterans Home and the Jacksonville Development Center. On Oct. 13, the unpaid bills owned for laundry services alone totalled $103,184.
The local agencies all have striven to keep in touch with local elected officials like state Sen. John Sullivan and Rep. Jil Tracy, and groups like the Illinois Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Association have tried to push for more responsibility in Springfield. They've made little headway.
"We've certainly discussed that we have to have this funding, and the people that we work with understand that, but they just say their hands are tied," Farkas said.
Worse, it's extremely difficult for agencies to negotiate with the state on the amounts of their contracts.
"You don't negotiate with the state," Hirner said. "They tell you what they're willing to pay, and we accept it or we don't."
Over the years, that's resulted in ever-deeper cuts in state contracts for these human services agencies, which have led them to stop accepting some state payments. For example, Cornerstone discontinued some counseling a few years ago for the Department of Children and Family Services, with Hirner citing "a ridiculously low rate for our professional counselors."
For the most part, however, the agencies depend on the state for a tremendous amount of income -- income they're not receiving.
Howell believes that, through its outrageously delayed payments, the state is washing its hands of the care of its neediest, most disenfranchised residents.
"It's just that contradiction in our world, where some of the most needy folks, who could be and will be at some point rehabilitated and brought back into the community as taxpayers and constructive contributors ... are those who have their resources removed and eliminated first," he said. "If we do believe in rehabilitation and helping our neighbors, we need to put our money where our mouth is."
#Source: Quincy Herald-Whig By MARY POLETTI Oct 18, 2011
http://www.whig.com/story/news/Unpaid-Bills-Human-Services-101811
No comments:
Post a Comment