EBI’s Executive Director, Tom Heinz, speaks to the San Francisco Chronicle about the challenges that disability service providers face due to inadequate funding for services. It’s a problem that impacts multiple agencies throughout the Bay Area and the individuals they serve.
“Many providers got a rate increase in 2016, when the California Legislature passed a law requiring many regional centers to boost wages and benefits for staffers who spend at least 75 percent of their time working directly with recipients of care or training. That increase worked out to a roughly 5 to 15 percent increase in payments for many providers, but it wasn’t enough to halt the exodus of workers leaving the demanding field for higher-paid entry-level jobs in the retail, fast-food and security sectors.”