TOPEKA — As the legislative process begins to wind down during a chaotic 2024 session, disability rights groups are praising budget provisions aimed at shortening wait times for Kansans with disabilities who need services.
Lawmakers overrode a veto from Gov. Laura Kelly to enact a provision in the state budget that would cap wait times for Kansans seeking state-funded disability services. The provision ensures that waiting lists will not exceed 6,800 people during the fiscal year that begins in July.
Rocky Nichols, executive director of the Kansas Disability Rights Center, called the change “very positive.”
“It shows the Legislature is taking the wait list seriously,” Nichols said. “This is going to have a big impact. I commend the Legislature for coming up with these conditions, because it’s a very innovative way to make sure that we actually reduce the wait list. It puts a cap on it.”
According to the most recent data, 7,698 Kansans are currently waiting for services, including 5,342 on the wait list for intellectual and developmental disabilities and 2,356 on the wait list for physical disabilities.
The Legislature set aside $45.8 million available in fiscal year 2025 to fund services for 1,000 Kansans currently on the state’s waiting list, split evenly between those with intellectual and physical disabilities and those with physical disabilities.
If the same trends continue as last year, when 561 new people were added to the waiting list for people with intellectual disabilities, the proposed new funding alone will not be enough to reduce the waiting list.
During veto override arguments Monday, Sen. Rick Billinger, R-Goodland, said lawmakers “cannot continue to put this issue off.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, we put $38 million into the football tournament,” Billinger said, “If we can’t put the money into IDD and PD, we’d better refocus. I believe this is the first step in us getting better, because we have to get better. We’re letting this community down.”
The law requires KDADS to submit a cost estimate to the Legislature by January for maintaining the caps, and the Legislature must pass a supplemental funding bill to cover the costs of maintaining the IDD waitlist at or below the 4,800 person cap and the PD waitlist at or below the 2,000 person cap.
Waiting lists have been a long-standing and growing problem. Kansans with intellectual or developmental disabilities qualify for Medicaid-funded waivers to receive a variety of needed services. People who want to receive this assistance are placed on a waiting list managed by KDADS.
But the wait can take more than a decade, and more Kansans are being added to the slow-processing list, an issue the Kansas Reflector examined last year in its “On the List” series.
“Overriding this veto will remove 500 Kansans with intellectual and developmental disabilities from record-high IDD wait lists and allow them to receive essential HCBS waiver services,” said Sarah Hart Weir, executive director of the Kansas Council on Developmental Disabilities. “Furthermore, overriding this veto will cap Kansas’ IDD wait list at 4,800, a long-term step toward eliminating IDD wait lists in the Sunflower State.”
Kelly said he supports finding a solution regarding wait times, but rejected the cap due to concerns about capacity if one were implemented.
“Capping the waiting list would prevent the agency from maintaining reserve capacity for special populations, such as children entering DCF shelters or residential and community-based services,” Kelly wrote in her veto. “Furthermore, capping the waiting list and continually adding to these exemptions in a haphazard or thoughtless manner would not be sufficient or sustainable unless provider capacity is also addressed.”
The Senate voted 28-12 and the House voted 116-9 to override the governor’s veto.
“I’m not worried about creating a new problem. The problem continues to exist,” said Republican Sen. Molly Baumgardner of Lewisburg, “and the problem continues to be ignored by officials. I support this veto override effort, and I urge the governor to have his secretary do the work that’s necessary so that we as a state legislature can clearly address the needs of children on the waiting list.”