Special committee part of Legislature’s attempt to tackle problems at BSDC

A special legislative committee would investigate problems at Beatrice State Developmental Center and find the right balance between community and institutional care for Nebraskans with developmental disabilities.

Its goal isn’t to close the institution, Speaker Mike Flood said Thursday after a public hearing on a resolution that would create the Developmental Disabilities Special Investigative Committee.

But during the hearing before the Executive Committee, several groups urged the state to do just that.

“We demand that the Legislature define a plan for the systematic deinstitutionalization of the residents of BSDC,” said Richard Ellis, representing ADAPT, NE.

That group is part of a national network of advocates, he said, “who are fighting so people with disabilities can live in the community with real supports instead of being locked up in nursing homes and other institutions.”

The recommendation for a special committee is part of the Legislature’s response to a series of investigations showing serious problems at the center, home to more than 300 people with developmental disabilities.

The reports describe staff shortages and problems in caring for people with serious medical issues and mental retardation.

During Thursday’s hearing, a former resident of the center said she hopes its residents get to move into the community, like she did.

Nancy Webb, who lived at the center from the time she was 5 until she was 27, described being put over a tub and spanked “even if you didn’t do anything.”

She was afraid to leave the only home she had known for an apartment in Omaha.

But Webb has been living and working in the community for more than 30 years now. And life opened up for her. She has friends. She volunteers at a doggy day care. She lives with another family, one of the many arrangements possible in community programs.

“I love where I live. I have my own room, my own things and my kitty cat,” Webb said, reading her testimony to the committee.

After the hearing, Flood said he expects the seven-member committee of senators to look at what occurred at Beatrice, to look at the continuum of care that should be available �” from community programs to the institution �” and to look at “what we need to run a better institution.”

Executive Committee members sent his resolution (LR283) to the full Legislature with a few amendments �” like the ability to hire legal staff and investigators �” that would strengthen the committee. Its report will be due Dec. 15.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services may end $28.6 million in federal funding for the institution, and the Justice Department has threatened to take civil action if conditions aren’t improved.

As a part of its response, Health and Human Services Department leaders have said they will move 100 residents to community programs by Jan. 1, 2009.

Mike Marvin, executive director of the state’s largest union, asked the committee to broaden the legislative study to look at staffing and mandatory overtime issues at all 24-hour state institutions. But the committee decided the focus will remain on Beatrice and on care for people with developmental disabilities.

“The focus should be on BSDC. That’s what brought us here,” said Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers.