Drive launched to increase pay of direct care professionals

An estimated 4,000 people with intellectual or developmental disabilities will face increasingly inferior services unless the state takes action to increase the $10.82 hourly rate paid 3,500 direct care professionals.

Marie Carroll, who loves the work, should know.

On top of a 40-hour week, she will put in as much as an additional 60 hours since agencies providing care for these people like The Trudeau Memorial Center and West Bay Residential can’t fill all the positions they need. New recruits and seasoned workers leave the jobs because their chances for increased pay are better elsewhere.

Carroll was one of several caregivers to attend a news conference Friday at West Bay Residential in Warwick where Sen. Louis P. DiPalma, first vice chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, announced a plan to increase the hourly wage to $15 in five years and link pay increases thereafter to inflation.

The Newport senator said this has been a cause close to his heart for the past four years, and this year, rather than waiting for the budget to be drafted, he’s starting his push early to ensure sufficient funding is included in the initial budget. He is already getting some traction.

DiPalma circulated an Oct. 26 letter from Elizabeth Roberts, secretary of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, indicating Gov. Gina Raimondo and her administration’s support for a multi-year wage increase for direct service professionals (DSPs).

“We are grateful for your partnership in proposing $5 million in the FY17 budget to implement an across the board wage increase for DSPs,” Roberts writes.

In questions following the press conference moderated by Donna Martin, executive director of Community Provider Network of Rhode Island, DiPalma placed the actual cost to Rhode Island for the first year of the “$15 in five” plan at somewhat less. He put the cost of increasing the hourly rate to $11.94 at an additional $6.8 million, of which half or $3.4 million would be paid by the state. The balance would come from the federal government. DiPalma didn’t have projected costs for implementing the entire five-year program.

He sees the system and care suffering unless action is taken. A chart tracking DSP wages in neighboring states shows Rhode Island’s hourly rate as virtually frozen since 2012, while Connecticut has climbed to $12.19 and Massachusetts to $13.02.

DiPalma said that while workers genuinely care about the population they serve, a survey found that 62 percent said that low pay is a factor that may make them leave their jobs. Additionally, a 2015 survey conducted by the Community Provider Network representing 23 private providers found that a majority of direct care workers are women heads of households and that many receive low-income state assistance including SNAP benefits, WIC, heating assistance, day care assistance, and housing aid. More than 40 percent hold more than one job, the survey found.

Apart from the pay that has virtually been stagnant since 2012, Carroll pointed out that the jobs of DSPs has changed from the basic goal of keeping clients safe to exposing and preparing them for job and life enrichment opportunities. The expectations of DSPs are more demanding.

This was a point also made by A. Anthony Antosh, director of the Paul V. Sherlock Center on Disabilities.

He said workers are expected to make decisions on incredibly complex things and that those in this field of work should be committed.

The outcomes achieved by adults who have a developmental disability are directly connected to the quality and stability of direct support staff, he said in a statement.

The private-sector direct care workers make $10.82 per hour while entry-level providers at the Rhode Island Community Living and Supports at the Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals make $17.15 an hour, the network observes.