ARC receives funding to assist persons with developmental disabilities.
Frederick, Md (KM) Funding reductions in Governor Wes Moore’s proposed fiscal year 2026 budget could have an impact on one local non-profit. The Governor’s spending plan contains $200 million in cuts to the Developmental Disabilities Administration, and that could affect the ARC of Frederick County which provides services to children and adults with developmental disabilities in a home setting. The goal is for them to eventually move into a place where they can live on their own.
“And those direct support professionals that allow people to work,”: says Aaron Stephens, the Director of Strategic Initiative for ARC. “Some people if they need need special feeding protocols; where somebody is in a wheelchair and needs to positioned during the day. There are threats to have the funding cut.”
“This is obviously a safely issue,” adds Shauna Mulcahy, the Executive Director of ARC.
“That allows someone to have their own individual staff person that can be with them during their services,” Mulcahy continues. “So that means that that person is giving them the attention and support that individual needs so that they’re not in a group of services maybe with four other people, There getting that individualized care that that one person needs.”
The Governor is calling for cuts in his budget to help close a nearly $3 billion deficit.
Stephens says reducing funding for the Developmental Disabilities Administration is “short sighted.” He said many of those with developmental disabilities have Medicaid as their insurer. “And Medicaid has requirements that necessitate us being able to provide individualized, one-to-one services and choices,”: he says. “And we’re concerned that the state isn’t realizing that if they cut these services that allow the one-to-one help during the day and at home, at work and in the community, that eventually they are not going be able to recoup the federal match through Medicaid, and that’s really going to be devastating to the state.”
Stephens and Mulcahy were guests recently on WFMD’s “Morning News Express.”
By Kevin McManus