PHOENIX — The Arizona Legislature is focused on affordability issues, but one budget issue isn’t getting much attention: the looming shortfall for the state’s disability services.
The Division of Developmental Disabilities will need to ask lawmakers for supplemental funding. A budget hole last year led to a bitter fight over how to keep DDD running.
But this year’s budget worries didn’t make Gov. Katie Hobbs’ State of the State address and haven’t been directly addressed in either party’s list of priorities.
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Michele Thorne, a mother of a disabled child and an advocate, called the omission “unfortunate.” She was at the Capitol on Tuesday for the first in a series of luncheons with lawmakers where they could hear directly from members of the disabled community.
“I'm hoping that events like this will just put the disability community more in the forefront of the minds of the legislators as they move forward and as they work on bills,” she said, adding that she hopes lawmakers keep the people they met at the lunch in mind as they work on the budget.
Thorne said she hopes the budget talks over DDD’s shortfall play out differently than last year, saying the disability community wants to collaborate on solutions.
“We're here to work in partnership with the Legislature this year, instead of as adversaries,” she said.
Bodie met with state Sen. Lela Alston, a Democrat who represents Legislative District 5.
“I want Arizona state lawmakers to know that the Arizona autism community deserves a voice, even for those who cannot speak with themselves,” he told ABC15.
He said he attended the lunch to advocate for the autism community, as well as the educators who have helped him succeed.
“I want to see well-trained, well-supported and fairly paid Arizona autism public school paraprofessionals,” he said.
Bodie said funding for disability services is crucial.
“With the right funding and with the right resources, individuals on the spectrum in Arizona have the full ability to reach beyond what their initial diagnosis said they were ... limited to,” he said.
Whit, who also talked with Alston, said lawmakers have a lot to learn about autism.
She said she hopes they remember that their budget decisions determine "the fate of many different people's abilities to live, to function, to feel normal and secure, not only financially, but socially and physically."
“We're already stigmatized enough as is, and we're already struggling enough as is,” Whit said. “We don't need more to worry about.”
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