Kansas wrestles with ways to shorten waitlist for disability care
The intellectual/developmentally disabled waiver program still has a long waitlist. That waitlist is shrinking, and Kansas lawmakers want to keep that momentum going.
by Blaise Mesa
February 14, 2025
Holly Oleson helps people who are intellectually disabled live as independently as possible.
She’s a lead direct support professional at Honey Bee Community Services in the Kansas City area, acting as the “brakes and gas” for the people she serves.
“The person served remains at the wheel with full control of their lives,” she said, but support professionals help them cook, prepare for job interviews and assist with finances.
Oleson told Kansas lawmakers about one particular client who needs consistency. This client doesn’t trust people “because they’re here one day and gone the next,” she said during a bill hearing.
“Within three months his world was flipped upside down when all three of his preferred staff left,” Oleson said. “This left him with a ton of emotions including abandonment, trust and attachment issues.”
Direct support professionals have high rates of turnover — sometimes up to 50%. The struggle to find staff is problematic in many ways. But it’s now one reason state lawmakers are hesitant to direct more funding to reduce the intellectual/developmentally disabled waitlist.
The I/DD waitlist helps intellectually disabled Kansans find people, like Oleson, to help them in their daily lives.
The waitlist is currently more than 4,000 people long, and Kansas lawmakers were considering allocating enough funding to take 500 people off the waitlist. That request was cut down to 320 slots, though, because the state might not have enough direct support workers to help another 500 people, said Rep. Troy Waymaster, a Bunker Hill Republican.
“I would love nothing more than to put more money towards the waiting list and get individuals off the waiting list,” said Waymaster, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, during a budget meeting. “(But) I know that the capacity is not there.”
Last year, lawmakers allocated funding to take 500 slots off the waitlist and were planning to follow that up with another 500 slots this year. In 2024, lawmakers were told finding staff for that 500 slots would be difficult. In 2025, Waymaster just doesn’t see how the workforce can catch up to the demand in the short amount of time.
Waymaster had a nephew on the waiting list until the child eventually got services. Now, his nephew’s caregiver can’t provide every service he needs because the caregiver is just too busy. Waymaster said he understands the pain of waiting, but putting money toward a program without people to help will do absolutely nothing.
Rocky Nichols, executive director of the Disability Rights Center of Kansas, doesn’t agree with Waymaster. He and other advocates said Kansas does have the workforce to help another 500 people.
Community service providers received about $235 million in state funds for rate increases since 2020 to help support more services.
Just last year, the Legislature put extra money into the program to cut the waitlist by 500 spots. The waitlist shrank by 1,000 slots. Notably, the underserved waitlist once shrank by 1,744 spots in one year.
Advocates say those results argue in favor of more funding this year.
“There is no rational or logical reason to say that the upper limit is 320 slots,” Nichols said.
More funding isn’t the only reason the waitlist shrinks. People on the waitlist might move and a waitlist spot can be cleared without offering any help. The wait for services is also so well known that some families apply for the waitlist before they actually need the help.
The waitlist has been a black mark on the state’s health care performance, but there’s a path to completely eliminating the backlog in four years, advocates say.
Disability rights groups proposed a three-pronged attack to eliminate the waitlist. That included:
- Cutting the waitlist by 500 slots in 2026, which isn’t on track in the Legislature.
- Starting up the new community support waiver. This alternative waiver is designed to offer an exit ramp for people on the waitlist. It does have support.
- And continuing to talk to people currently on the waitlist to see who needs what type of help, which may not happen.
The Legislature is also working on another proposal to help expand the direct support personnel workforce.
The Kansas C.A.R.E.S. Act would develop career education programs — such as creating community college classes, opening state health coverage to staff in nongovernment jobs and creating an online data system to help families with questions about the waitlist.
The goal of this bill is to make the career more desirable by offering better benefits and career development to reduce turnover of positions.
Both state lawmakers and advocates like Nichols see it as an important step in helping families on the I/DD waiver.
The final funding decision on programs is still months away. The House Appropriations committee prepared its budget recommendations to debate them on the House floor next week. Then comes the budget debate in the full House and Senate.
Rep. Will Carpenter, an El Dorado Republican, has been pushing hard to cut down the waitlists. He spent weeks in statehouse budget committees shooting down proposals, not because they were bad, but because the state needs to cut back on its budget.
Kansas is currently $480 million short of funding expenses in 2026, but that is just a fraction of the state’s $23 billion in total spending. Key lawmakers say budgetary shortfalls can be addressed with proactive reductions in spending.
Carpenter sees I/DD waitlist funding as a priority. He said the state probably can serve 500 additional families if adequately funded. But not every proposal can be supported.
“In times of need we’re kind of looking at things to be a little more conservative on,” Carpenter said.