Several hundred showed up Tuesday to rally outside the State House, in protest over a second year of cuts to the Developmental Disabilities Administration budget. (Photo by Danielle J. Brown/Maryland Matters)
Tensions were on full display during a rally Tuesday in Annapolis by advocates and individuals with developmental disabilities who have grown frustrated with continuing cuts in state funding to the agency that oversees the services helping them live their day-to-day lives.
The latest rallies come as the House prepares to take up a Senate budget proposal that would cut $126 million from the DDA in fiscal 2027 — down from the $150 million proposed in Gov. Wes Moore’s (D) budget as the state tries to close a $1.5 billion gap in the budget.
The latest reductions follow $164 million in DDA cuts last year, when the state faced a more than $3 billion budget gap. That cut was originally targeted at $400 million, but activism by advocates was able to reduce the impact of those cuts.
Carmen Houston-Ludlam from Calvert County worries that a second year of cuts will cause her support team to leave the field, limiting her ability to be out in the community – seeing movies, going bowling and playing at arcades.
Advocates notch some gains, but say $126 million cut to DDA funds is still ‘painful’, ‘unacceptable’
“We don’t want to have to keep coming here every year,” she said, adding that the cuts proposed by the Moore administration are “destroying” services for people who self-direct their developmental disability care.
Her frustration was echoed by dozens of signs held by the more the 200 attendees of the Concerned Citizens for Self-Directed Services rally – directing much of their ire at Moore and his “cost-containment” measures over the last two sessions to rein in “unsustainable” spending at the agency.
The DDA oversees the Medicaid waiver to cover medical services and other needs for people with developmental disabilities. Advocates note that the $126 million reduction proposed in the Senate version of the budget will ultimately mean a loss of more than $250 million to the agency, once matching federal dollars are taken into account.
Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) told reporters Tuesday that cuts have been made “across the board, almost every aspect of the state government” to help address the gap in the budget.
“The DDA cuts were some of the larger cuts — because we’ve seen the increases in DDA spending to be … of the greatest over the last four years,” he told reporters Tuesday. “We have to look at the place where the costs are escalating the fastest, and that is within the DDA budget. Moving forward, we cannot afford to have those level of increases.”
But those cuts are still “painful” and will constrain the wages of people who work as staff for community providers or people who hire their own staff through the self-direction program.
“I chose this work because I care deeply about the people I serve, but caring does not pay the bills,” Michele Guy, an Anne Arundel resident who provides self-directed services, told advocates during the Tuesday rally.
She said it was the second year in a row that she’s had to “fight for her wages” due to the proposed cuts.
“It’s exhausting, demoralizing, and if it weren’t for how much I love the people I work with — I would walk away from this field. That’s how serious this is,” Guy said, drawing applause and cheers from the crowd. “Reject these cuts.”
The hope now lies with the House, which could offer changes to the Senate version of the budget. But in a tight budget year, any restoration in funding by delegates would likely be modest.
Meanwhile, anger toward the Moore administration manifested itself in what appear to be unflattering artificial intelligence-generated depictions of Moore that circulated online this weekend ahead of the self-directed services rally. The cartoonish renderings show the governor ignoring the complaints of advocates who oppose the budget cuts.
One image depicts the governor – a vocal sports fan – drawing up his March Madness bracket as protesters behind him are yelling to protect DDA services. Another depicts him making balloon animals while a dumpster full of money engulfed in flames roars behind him. The dumpster is labeled “disability services.”
Several organizations involved in the advocacy for the developmental disability community condemned the images as “inappropriate” and “counter-productive.”
“The circulation of manipulated, and inappropriate images targeting Governor Wes Moore or any other public official have no place in our public discourse,” said a statement Tuesday from the Maryland Developmental Disabilities Coalition.
“The images circulated online by some developmental disability advocates do not represent the views of the DD Coalition, and in fact, are counter-productive to addressing the systemic issues facing Marylanders with developmental disabilities,” the statement reads.
But some advocates said the images are an indication of the frustration felt by some members of the community.
Patti Saylor from the Self-Directed Advocacy Network of Maryland said SDAN wants to engage in respectful collaboration and work with the agencies to resolve the budget issues facing the DDA, but individuals in the community may take a more combative approach.
“Organizations like SDAN … we are looking to participate and collaborate,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean that an activist, and individual voice, isn’t free to share whatever they want to say.”
— Maryland Matters reporter Bryan P. Sears contributed to this report.
Originally published at Marylandmatters.Org