A key, longstanding challenge is finally being addressed

ECONOMIC IMPACT

In the aftermath of the New Hampshire budget debate, there will be a lot of energy spent tallying the “winners and losers” of the process, with a lot of focus on how this twoyear spending blueprint reflects on political leaders and parties. The time spent on the most controversial elements of the state budget debate overshadows a critical and significant assist to the disability community of New Hampshire.

The budget makes significant progress on a longstanding challenge for Granite State Independent Living (GSIL) and several other nonprofit agencies tasked with helping citizens: finding qualified help and paying them a decent wage. One of the worst-kept secrets of our industry is the relatively low pay. While we celebrate the low unemployment in our state, the lack of available workers makes it very difficult for GSIL to provide critical and highly popular in-home care and services to consumers.

Granite State Independent Living is a statewide nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote quality of life with independence for people with disabilities through advocacy, information and referral, education, peer support and transition services. GSIL offers non-medical personal care services assistance for daily life tasks. These are high-touch, handson, essential programs for our consumers who seek independence in life.

Low pay has long been a serious challenge for providers like us, making us less competitive than other career paths and making it tough to meet the needs of all consumers. Thing is, we HAVE to come through for our consumers, because we are frequently a service of first and last resort. We are proud of our efforts, but our workers do it because they see it as a calling, not to make lots and lots of money.

In the budget, New Hampshire lawmakers helped us close the pay gap that has long existed in the nonprofit disability services sector. With a vote to boost funding to our cause, GSIL can increase wages for front-line, in-home workers, known as attendant care employees (ACEs). In the next year, we will invest more than a million dollars into our workforce, a significant raise for these hard-working men and women. These ACEs are the heartbeat of our operations, and it makes an enormous impact on our ability to retain these special folks and to recruit new employees through better pay. This will undoubtedly make a difference in the day-today lives of our consumers. I am grateful and thrilled and we are hiring.

Lawmakers took major steps to take care of those who care for others in our state. There are critical increases to three separate Medicaid-funded Choices For Independence Program (CFI) services for personal care, homemakers and case management. CFI is a waiver program that provides a wide range of service choices that enable eligible adults to stay in their own homes and communities, including in-home services to assist with eating, bathing, dressing and other personal care tasks, as well as assistance with general household tasks and preparation of nutritious meals.

Lawmakers also agreed to a new 5% increase to other services under this waiver, expanding access to new programs and extending a helping hand to even more consumers. This increase will impact GSIL consumers, because we will have more resources to invest in the programs that impact the daily lives of families who need our services, not to mention offering a critical financial boost to our employees.

Perhaps as importantly as loosening the purse strings for people in need, lawmakers are going to more closely examine how to achieve parity in both pay and services under Social Security Act 1915(c) waivers, which include choices for independence, developmental services, in-home support and acquired brain disorder services.

Nonprofit providers like GSIL have been advocating for investments and equity such as these for a number of years. It’s both remarkable and wonderful that these investments are being made as the pandemic comes to a close and people seek more services that allow them to lead independent lives.

To lawmakers in the House and Senate, and to Governor Sununu, I would like to express my deep appreciation.

Deb Ritcey is CEO of Granite State Independent Living, Concord.