A bill that would require the state to eliminate the list of people waiting for in-home services for the developmentally disabled failed to clear a House committee Tuesday.
House Bill 1300 by Rep. Josh Miller, R-Heber Springs, would require the state Department of Human Services to "reprioritize spending" to provide services to people on the waiting list for help with daily living tasks, with a goal of eliminating the list within three years.
About 3,000 people are on the list.
Act 50, signed by Gov. Asa Hutchinson last month, will direct $8.5 million in annual tobacco settlement proceeds to provide services to 500 to 900 people on the list.
Melissa Stone, director of the Human Services Department's Developmental Disabilities Services Division, said serving the remaining people on the list would cost about $43 million each year in state funds.
"We do not have current funding to serve the wait list as we're currently operating," Stone told members of the House Committee on Public Health, Welfare and Labor.
Despite testimony in support of HB1300 by people on the waiting list and their advocates, the bill failed after receiving only 6 of the 11 votes it needed to advance. Seven committee members voted against the bill, two did not vote, and five were absent.
Miller said he's not giving up on the issue. He proposed a bill in 2015 that would have required the Human Services Department to develop a plan to eliminate the waiting list, but that bill also failed to clear the House public health committee.
"I think the governor's office is actually guilty of getting out and scaring some members unnecessarily to avoid having to deal with this," Miller said.
Hutchinson spokesman J.R. Davis said the governor opposes setting a deadline to eliminate the list without knowing where the money would come from, but he didn't actively lobby against bill.
He noted that Hutchinson championed the legislation that became Act 50.
"The governor is constantly looking for ways to responsibly reduce the waiting list or eliminate it altogether, but there has to be a plan in place, and there have to be specifics," Davis said.
A Section on 02/08/2017
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