Center for Disabilities Studies

The Joint Finance Committee, which is finishing the Fiscal Year 2020 budget bill, approved Gov. Carney’s recommended $60 million in opportunity grants to schools with high populations of English Language Learners and students from low-income backgrounds. The committee also added $15 million to hire counselors, social workers and school psychologists and increased the $2 million grant to cover costs for K–3 basic special education, which are not accounted for in the current funding formula.

A graduate student at UD has earned a National Science Foundation grant to continue his work making ankle-foot orthosis braces more responsive to users’ movement speed. These assistive technology devices are worn on the lower leg and foot to support the ankle and ensure the ankle and foot stay in the right position, but currently their ability to move with the user as he or she flexes an ankle is limited. Fourteen UD alumni also received grants, which provide a $34,000 yearly stipend, tuition support and other research opportunities.

Sens. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) have released a previously secret list of nearly 400 nursing homes across the country that received “persistent record of poor care” ratings from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Six of the nursing homes are in Delaware. CMS does reveal the names of nursing homes that receive that rating and are subsequently put into a federal program where they receive increased oversight. However, due to budget restraints, that program currently oversees only about 80 homes. The remaining 400 had been kept anonymous until the senators released the report Monday.

The Joint Finance Committee approved spending increases for child care providers and direct support professionals for adults with intellectual disabilities in the state’s Fiscal Year 2020 budget, but both groups still earn less than current market rates. Spurred by the 2018 passage of the McNesby Act, lawmakers appropriated $4.6 million for the current budget and $4.2 million for FY 2020 – about 20 percent of the spending needed to meet market rates.

The U.S. Department of Labor has created a website for people to share “ideas, individual stories and personal experiences” related to subminimum wage employment. Under current law, employers can obtain 14(c) certificates from the Labor Department, which allow them to pay workers with disabilities less than the federal minimum wage. While some advocates maintain this creates employment opportunities for individuals who may not otherwise be able to get a job, others charge it is an unfair and discriminatory practice. The website URL is https://14cdialogue.ideascale.com.