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Dutton Farm requests $850,000 to expand workforce services for adults with developmental disabilities
Summary
Dutton Farm CEO Jenny Brown asked the committee for $850,000 to buy and renovate a Sterling Heights building to expand job-readiness, digital literacy and employment services for Macomb County residents with developmental disabilities; Brown said about $620,000 would retire a loan and roughly $200,000 would fund renovations.
Jenny Brown, CEO of Dutton Farm, presented an $850,000 appropriation request to purchase a building in Sterling Heights and renovate it to expand workforce development, job readiness and digital-literacy programming for adults with developmental disabilities in Macomb County.
Brown said her nonprofit has delivered tens of thousands of hours of job coaching and community-access supports and that demand in Macomb County is acute: she cited almost 27,000 residents with developmental disabilities and a 62% unemployment rate among that population. She told the committee Medicaid revenue covers ongoing service operations but does not pay for capital purchases, which is why the requested appropriation would be used to pay down a loan (~$620,000) and fund renovations (~$200k) to create intake space, job-readiness training rooms and other dedicated areas needed to expand services.
Committee members asked about plan B if state funds are not approved; Brown said individuals would remain on waiting lists and that businesses facing labor shortages would continue to miss hires that program participants could fill. No committee vote on the request appears in the transcript.
