🔒CT’s fiscal crisis presents reform opportunities

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”

Those words were made famous most recently by former President Obama chief of staff and now Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, when he was talking to a group of corporate executives in 2008 about the opportunities for a large-scale government response to the financial crisis and other serious issues facing the country at the time.

What followed were several sweeping reforms from an $800 billion-plus stimulus package to the Affordable Care Act.

Now it appears, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's administration is taking a page out of the Rahm Emanuel playbook, using Connecticut's own fiscal crisis as a way to reform government.

The latest example: Last week the Department of Developmental Services (DDS) commissioner unveiled a plan to privatize dozens of state-run group homes and other services for the intellectually disabled, which could save the state an estimated $70 million by next fiscal year, mainly through the elimination of 605 state jobs.

Besides offering a money-saving opportunity, the move caters to a state and nationwide trend of moving the infirmed and disabled out of institutionalized care and into community settings. The savings is largely derived by replacing a unionized, higher-paid state workforce, with lower-paid nonprofit or private-sector workers.

Broadly speaking, we agree with the policy move, although we understand the economic hardship that will be placed on those state workers who will be losing their jobs. Connecticut's fiscal crisis has left Malloy and other government officials little choice, but to find ways to dramatically cut spending in areas where we dish out the most amount of money.

Providing care to the intellectually disabled and the sick may be one of government's most important tasks, but also the most costly. DDS, for example, employs thousands with a billion-dollar plus budget to provide care and services for about 16,000 people. Finding ways to rein in those costs, while also preserving or improving the quality of services, is a must.

Union officials, as expected, blasted the Malloy administration announcement, arguing that the private sector won't be able to provide the estimated savings or match the service standards provided by state-run institutions, but the facts don't necessarily match the rhetoric.

For example, a 2011 report by the Legislative Program Review and Investigations Committee concluded, among other things, that it is on average about twice as costly for residential care in public settings, with little to no difference in the quality of care provided.

The report recommended an accelerated pace of moving away from a “dual service system to a private sector service model.”

That's not to say privatization plans are without risks and/or challenges. We'd like to see the program's full implementation blueprint before we give it an all encompassing stamp of approval. Few details were shared on how the transition will be managed.

Also, as Hartford Business Journal columnist John Horak has written about recently, the significantly lower pay for private/nonprofit care and service providers is a threat to the system, making it difficult to retain quality workers.

Nonprofits are so underfunded by the state's contract-based system, Horak asserts, that some providers have a difficult time paying their workers a living wage. That's a concern that must be taken into consideration because if the nonprofit sector can't attract committed, talented caregivers, quality is at risk.

However, desperate fiscal times call for drastic measures, and reforming Connecticut's costly long-term care and services is a must. We applaud Malloy for taking proactive measures in this regard.

Now we just hope the implementation is effective and the projected cost savings become a reality.