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Commissioner defends move to community group homes and details watchdog steps after reported incidents
Summary
Commissioner Sarah Edelman described progress shifting people with intellectual and developmental disabilities into community settings, detailed site-visit oversight that found ~1,300 incidents and 283 placements on a central registry, and outlined plans to strengthen medical review and mortality oversight under proposed legislation.
Commissioner Sarah Edelman told the Senate Budget & Appropriations Committee that expanding community-based group homes for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) has been a priority of the Murphy administration and that the department has invested in accountability and monitoring.
Edelman said the administration has opened about 2,300 new community beds with nearly 1,100 more in development and raised direct-support wages significantly (from about $12.66 an hour to an average of roughly $21.37 under the proposed budget). She said DHS conducts unannounced site visits and that, during this administration, investigators identified more than 1,300 incidents that required follow-up and placed 283 individuals on the central registry of offenders against individuals with developmental disabilities.
The commissioner and deputies described how the Stephen Camino's law (as cited in testimony) and department administrative orders define which events are investigated by providers and which require state investigation. DHS officials said moderate or major injuries automatically route to the Office of Investigations and that the department is proposing legislation to create a disability mortality and abuse-prevention advisory committee and a director of medical services to strengthen medical review of investigations.
Lawmakers pressed the department on staffing levels and whether it investigates all unexpected deaths in state-licensed residences. DHS replied that it conducts mortality reviews for all deaths and that reviews route to full investigation when suspicious circumstances or indications of abuse, neglect or exploitation arise. DHS said it has 45 investigators in its Office of Investigations and over 200 staff in units that support field safety and oversight.
Several senators sought further documentation from DHS and asked for follow-up on investigator staffing, the date corrective measures were implemented after past audit findings, and how the department will operationalize proposed oversight changes.
