Protection and Advocacy seeks continued funding; pilot shows assistive-technology savings for high-need clients

Veronica Ziets, executive director of the North Dakota Protection and Advocacy Project (P&A), briefed the House Appropriations Human Resources Division on the agency’s caseload trends, federal grant structure and optional budget requests. The agency also presented results from an assistive-technology pilot during the hearing.

P&A’s role and caseload trends Ziets told the committee P&A is the federally authorized protection-and-advocacy system established under the Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act and that state law further defines the agency’s duties (North Dakota Century Code chapter 25 and North Dakota Administrative Code Title 65 were cited). She summarized core program lines: information and referrals (INRs), training and education, investigations of abuse/neglect/exploitation, representative-payee reviews and advocacy/legal representation.

She reported rising demand in information-and-referral work and training; P&A logged 6,126 information-and-referrals in the most recent two federal fiscal years (a roughly 9% increase over the prior biennium) and said training reached more than…