Looking beyond Beatrice center is wise

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The Legislature showed good judgment this week in widening the scope of a special investigative committee to include community-based programs for developmentally disabled Nebraskans.

A main focus of the committee will be to investigate deterioration of service at the Beatrice State Developmental Center.

Frankly, the deplorable conditions at the Beatrice center have already been documented to an unprecedented degree in a series of federal and state reports.

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If anyone is unconvinced at this point that improvement is needed at the BSDC, another report is unlikely to convince them.

By comparison, scrutiny of conditions in community-based programs has been minimal.

The recent settlement of a lawsuit filed in 2003 does not inspire confidence. Plaintiffs in the lawsuit said that the state is not providing adequate funding for community programs and that developmentally disabled Nebraskans cannot get the services they need.

One of the cases cited in the lawsuit was a woman identified as Heather V, who is legally blind, unable to walk and has seizures. She is unable to feed herself or use the toilet alone.

Under a state formula, she receives only 105 hours of service a month. Care providers and her parents believe she needs 173 hours of service to ensure her health and safety.

The settlement in the case does not provide more funds. It merely establishes a process for people to appeal when they believe clients are not getting the service they need.

The availability of a proper level of service in community programs is imperative because the remedy proposed for problems at the Beatrice center is to transfer its residents into those community programs.

The center has a chronic staff shortage. State officials plan to reduce the number of residents at Beatrice from about 300 to 200. With about 200 residents, officials say, the center will be right-sized for its usual staffing level.

But the state needs to do more than disperse clients at Beatrice into smaller community programs across the state, where conditions may not be monitored as intensely as they have been recently in Beatrice.

As Tim Shaw, CEO of Nebraska Advocacy Services, put it, “to focus on one aspect without looking at the entire system … will cause us to come up short with an effective remedy or solution.”

As the investigative committee gets under way, its members may very well find that the most important part of their work will focus on the community-based programs that are slated to care for more of Nebraska’s most vulnerable residents in coming years.