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Senate committee hears calls to shore up community mental‑health and developmental‑disability services
Summary
Representatives of Vermont Care Partners and the Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council told the Senate Health & Welfare committee that community‑based mental health, crisis services and developmental‑disability supports are underfunded and that housing and Medicaid rate increases are urgent priorities.
Advocates for community mental‑health and developmental‑disability services told the Vermont Senate Health & Welfare committee that the state’s home‑and‑community supports are under pressure from rising demand and inadequate funding.
Amy Johnson, director of government affairs and communications for Vermont Care Partners, described the statewide network of designated agencies (DAs) and specialized service agencies (SSAs) that deliver community mental‑health, substance‑use and developmental services. Johnson said those agencies deliver a large share of supports outside physical offices: “64% of our services across all 16 agencies happen in community,” she said, citing schools, homes and job sites as service settings.
Johnson told the committee the system handles crisis response—988, enhanced mobile crisis and mental‑health urgent care—but warned that underinvestment in upstream, home‑and‑community services erodes the crisis continuum. “As we continue to underinvest in home and community based care, it erodes that part of the system, erodes the crisis part of the system, which is much more expensive,” she said.
Kirsten Murphy, executive director of the Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council, described the council’s federally mandated role and said the council supports system‑level work such as transition services and plain‑language health information for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She noted the council’s federal funding and work with partners including Green Mountain Self Advocates and Disability Rights Vermont.
Witnesses supplied numerical and budgetary details: Vermont Care Partners requested a Medicaid rate increase and cited a 6.2% provider rate increase ask (about $13,900,000 general fund) among the year’s priorities to stabilize services. Johnson said the agencies serve roughly 40,000 Vermonters annually and highlighted a continuing need to fund crisis services, housing and high‑acuity youth supports.
Committee members were told housing shortages are a critical barrier to both service recipients and staff recruitment. Johnson said housing limits recruitment of new staff and can destabilize care recipients; Murphy described DD Council efforts to improve transitions from school to work and to secure federal grants for transition programs.
Both witnesses said the committee should consider funding increases and system reforms that prioritize home‑and‑community supports, crisis continuum investments and housing to preserve capacity for urgent care and long‑term supports. They offered to provide additional materials and to return for further discussion as the committee develops budget and policy proposals.
