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TOPEKA — Extra dollars legislators approved for the coming budget year to trim the waiting lists for services for people with physical or developmental disabilities may get eaten up by current-year cost over-runs, according to the state’s welfare chief.

“By our estimates, it looks as though DD (developmentally disabled) will be $1.2 million over (budget); PD (physically disabled) a little more than that,” said Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services Secretary Don Jordan, addressing a Tuesday meeting with about 60 agency clients, program directors and lobbyists.

Jordan said SRS is still figuring out how many people can be moved off the waiting lists with the money that’s available in fiscal 2011.

“We’ll know by mid July,” he said. The new fiscal year begins July 1.

Long waiting lists

Last month, legislators set aside an additional $3.3 million for community based services for people with developmental disabilities and an additional $3.6 million for in-home services for people with physical disabilities.

Both programs have long waiting lists. Currently, the only people moving off the lists are those in crisis situations.

Jordan said the “overspending” in the current fiscal year appears to be driven by there being more crisis cases than initially were projected and fewer people being able to leave the programs.

He told the audience that “every penny” of the additional $6.9 million approved by legislators earlier this year would be spent on services for people with disabilities.

But it remains unclear how many non-crisis people will be moved off the waiting lists in the months ahead

Jordan asked the audience to keep the adjustments in perspective, noting that the $6.9 million approved by lawmakers represents but a small percentage increase in the two programs’ combined budgets of about $440 million.

At least 2,054 people with physical disabilities and 2,343 with developmental disabilities were on the waiting lists last month.

Tom Laing, executive director at Interhab, an association representing most of the state’s community based programs for people with developmental disabilities, agreed with most of Jordan’s assessment.

“He’s being honest and forthright, and we appreciate the open dialogue,” Laing said. “We recognize the challenges he’s talking about – times are tight. But I would also point out that legislative intent was pretty clear: That money is for the waiting list and for people in crisis.

“The other thing is this doesn’t have to happen right away,” he said. “It’s too soon to have a conniption.”

“Least pain possible”

Jordan, whose comments were broadcast via speakerphone to SRS offices throughout the state, spent much of the hour-long meeting assuring listeners that SRS did everything it could to avoid cutting services.

“We tried to inflict the least possible pain,” he said, “but I have to say we’re way past the point of not hurting our clients. They’ve taken a significant number of hits in the last two or three years, and our providers have all been put in very challenging situations.”

Jordan said it “...is hard for me to imagine” what the state’s network of social services would look like if legislators had not passed a 1-cent sales tax and had not restored the 10 percent cut in Medicaid reimbursement rates that were ordered in January by the governor as a stop-gap measure to plug the state’s budget hole.

He warned that despite the tax increase, further cuts in SRS spending are likely in fiscal 2012, which begins July 1, 2011.

“One way or another, things are going to have to improve,” he said, referring to the state’s economy, “or there are going to have to be some further reductions.”

And it will be difficult, he said, to keep cutting the department’s administrative costs.

“We’re to a point where we have 500 fewer employees now than we did in January 2008 – and the workload hasn’t gone down,” Jordan said.

Last fall, SRS laid off 34 people and demoted 67 mid-level supervisors into lower paying jobs. In April, the department shuttered its offices in Wamego and Abilene.

In May, SRS stopping paying for funeral services for the indigent. It’s also frozen its contracts with agencies that enforce child support collections.

“We are way, way past the point of having any fat left in the budget,” Jordan said.