HARTFORD — The signs of influence were there: About 30 legislators showed up at a rallying point Wednesday as dozens of parents of children with intellectual disabilities prepared to fan out through the Capitol complex and press lawmakers to resist $47 million in proposed cuts to services.
The consensus in the crowded meeting room Wednesday was that parents, schooled by advocates to become their own champions, have in recent years fully conveyed what they see as an unjust system that favors expensive, outmoded state institutions serving a fraction of the population.
Now, having gained considerable influence at the Capitol, particularly with nearly 70 legislators on a disabilities caucus they helped to create, the challenge is to turn access into actions that take fundamental programs — job supports, day services, in-home help for families — off the budgetary chopping block.
Leslie Simoes, executive director of The Arc Connecticut, set a tone that was echoed by several legislators. She said families are grateful that Gov. Dannel P. Malloy identified a stalled line of more than 2,000 people waiting for services as a top priority, but that cuts to the Department of Developmental Services contained in Malloy’s proposed budget “could be devastating.”
“Your voices are loud and clear,” Rep. John Hampton, D-Simsbury, a co-chair of the legislative caucus on intellectual and developmental disabilities, told the audience of parents and clients.
“We have fallen asleep thinking of your faces and the faces of your children and the stories that we’ve heard from you,” Hampton said, having listened to families in their living rooms and at Capitol public hearings.
He was asked later if he can support Malloy’s proposed budget and at the same time temper the deep cuts to human services that it contains.
“I think we can, in a bipartisan manner, working with the governor, make cuts as necessary — such as state overtime and a cap on bonding — while protecting what is one of our core services,” said Hampton.
He said the community of people with intellectual disabilities, and their parents and advocates, “have made such tremendous advances — to cut them off at the knees right now would be so devastating.”
Sen. Beth Bye, D-West Hartford, one of the legislature’s most influential members, described for the audience what she sees as an undeniable political reality.
Referring to the current generation of young people with intellectual disabilities, Bye told the parents: “We are watching children who are growing up without options. We need to have everyone fully engaged in the community, yet there are grave concerns about this budget.”
Bye is Senate chair of the appropriations committee, and a co-chair, with Hampton and Rep, Jay Case, R-Winsted, of the disabilities caucus.
“We’ve been fighting to hold the line [on funding to the Department of Developmental Services] but what is, is not enough — not when there are 2,000 families waiting for community services and housing.”
