Budgets and the disabled: We must find resources for effective services

Opportunity Village was founded in 1954 by a small group of local families seeking to improve the lives of their children with intellectual disabilities. Since then, Opportunity Village has grown to become Nevada's largest private, nonprofit community rehabilitation program, providing vocational training, community job placement, advocacy and social-recreation programs to more than 1,000 people with disabilities every month.

We are able to provide these services because of the diligence and support of our staff, hundreds of volunteers, the tens of thousands of people who attend the Magical Forest (and other special events) and the taxpayers of Nevada.

Gov. Brian Sandoval and the Legislature will face some enormous challenges trying to craft a state budget that balances necessary services with appropriate resources. People with intellectual disabilities have a vital stake in these decisions, because they are often the poorest members of our society. Many people with severe intellectual disabilities make $6,000 a year or less. They rely on the support of their families and our community. As advocates for Nevadans with such disabilities, we at Opportunity Village request the governor and the Legislature adopt the following principles when discussing the state's role in assisting these vulnerable citizens.

-- Support families: Many people with intellectual disabilities live with family members. The personal care these families provide saves taxpayers millions of dollars per year. Family caregivers need to work to pay the rent and buy the groceries. They can't do that unless they have the services of agencies such as Opportunity Village that assure their disabled family members have a safe, productive place to go each and every day. Every dollar spent to support such families saves $10 that would have been spent on nursing homes or other residential support services.

-- Promote cost-effective services: People should receive the support that they need to be safe and productive. While some families naturally desire more than the minimum amount of services for their loved ones with intellectual disabilities, should taxpayers pay for these "enhanced" services or should the burden be placed on private donors or the family alone?

As these questions are addressed, a re-examination of the role of government in providing services to individuals with intellectual disabilities is warranted. Often, nonprofit organizations like Opportunity Village provide comparable or superior services at significantly lower cost. Recently, Opportunity Village engaged an independent third party, Applied Analysis, to review and analyze the economic benefits of the services we provide.

The results concluded that if Opportunity Village didn't exist and state or local governments were to provide the same services "the increased public cost would be at least $17 million annually." Currently, only 25 percent of Opportunity Village's annual operating budget comes from government fees or grants.

-- Value public-private partnerships: One of the many services offered to Nevadans with intellectual disabilities through nonprofit residential support providers is assistance with securing alternate sources of income, such as food stamps or rent subsidies. Unfortunately, for every alternative source of income identified, Nevada penalizes support providers through a comparable reduction in state funding. For every outside dollar we help identify for our citizens, the state takes another dollar away from the budget we need to provide these services. Finding these sources of income is hard work made even harder by more than five years without an increase in state funding. Nevada should encourage the efforts of service providers such as Opportunity Village without penalizing them for doing the best they can for those in need.

Nevadans with intellectual disabilities are some of the most vulnerable people in the state. The governor and the Legislature must work together to find the resources to support our neighbors with disabilities, and the families who care for them, while assuring these resources are used effectively and efficiently.

Ed Guthrie is executive director of Opportunity Village.