State officials apologize to parents of disabled children facing service cuts, but say reductions are needed
PHOENIX — A state Division of Developmental Disabilities executive apologized to hundreds of parents on Wednesday during an online town hall and outlined the reasons for the upcoming cuts to thousands of children in the program.
“One of our focus areas is to maintain trust and confidence. It already feels like we have a lot of work to build that trust back,” said DDD Assistant Director Zane Garcia Ramadan.
The DDD says reductions will begin after Oct. 1 for attendant care and habilitation services for up to 18,000 children under 18.
The cuts will amount to $47 million in savings, according to the governor’s office.
The reductions are being imposed because of dramatic growth in the DDD program, and there is not enough money to fund all services, according to Gov. Katie Hobbs.
The state scheduled the first of two virtual DDD town halls, with one on Wednesday morning and the second on Thursday evening.
During the two-hour session, Ramadan presented a series of slides that broke down to a simple numbers game: Too many disabled kids and not enough money for services.
He noted that before the pandemic, the cost for all attendant care and habilitation services was $77 million. It now costs $614 million, and Ramadan said the current level of spending is not sustainable.
Courtney Burnett, mother of a disabled child and vice president of Raising Voices Coalition, said the cuts still sting.
“My takeaway remains the same,” said Burnett, whose group represents parents in the DDD community. “Thousands of young children are going to be impacted by these cuts.”
State officials did not have a precise number of how many children would be affected. The reductions would begin 10 days following a new service “assessment.”
Burnett said the policy is not fair because some DDD families may have an assessment at the beginning of October, resulting in cuts 10 days later. However, other families may not have an assessment until December, meaning cuts may not kick in until the end of the year.
“While it’s a budget item, these are real human lives, and the most vulnerable human lives that we have in the state of Arizona are going to be affected by these changes,” she said. “I think these could have been rolled out better and differently.”
She told 12News a more equitable way to administer the reductions would be for them all to begin Jan. 1.
However, state officials said there was an urgency to implement cuts now, even though members of the DDD community thought they had full funding for all of 2025-26 after major cuts were staved off during the legislative session.
State officials on Wednesday said they, too, thought there was enough money, but the financial projections in the spring were made on figures from 2024.
They said enrollment for all DDD services such as occupational and speech therapy, respite care, and behavioral analysis, continues to skyrocket, and the cuts were made to save other programs.
Arizona — unlike other states — does not have a waiting list for developmental disability services, and DDD officials said they want to keep it that way.
State officials said in less than a decade, the DDD program has grown from 37,476 Arizonans to 62,561. About 59 percent of those served are children.
Additional details can be found here.