Arizona House passes contested disability services bill

PHOENIX — Republicans stacked the deck on Tuesday in the Arizona House to pass a controversial bill that would significantly cut in-home services for disabled Arizonans.

The GOP-controlled Legislature and Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, have been at odds over how to fund a $122 million shortfall to the state’s Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD).

That agency provides services for children and adults with autism, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, and other disabilities. Funding was set to run out at the end of this month, and the cause is rapid growth and more family members getting paid to provide services to relatives.

Republicans in the House and Senate Appropriations Committees on Tuesday planned to pass identical bills that would cover the shortfall so nearly 60,000 Arizonans with disabilities can continue to have state services through the end of June.

But the GOP leadership plan also includes reducing the number of weekly hours for paid parental caregivers to 20.

Dozens of people, including several in wheelchairs, spoke against the legislation. 

They said cutting such services would result in some disabled Arizonans being institutionalized.

“You are not just asking us to justify services. You are asking us to justify our existence. Because without services. We can’t exist,” Gabrielle Ficchi of Phoenix told the committee.

Rep. Julie Willoughby, a Republican and emergency room nurse from Chandler, offered an amendment to keep the weekly hours at 40.

That plan would have had enough bi-partisan votes to pass, but House GOP leaders added three more Republicans to the Appropriations Committee on Tuesday morning.

That resulted in her amendment failing by one vote and Chairman David Livingston, R-Peoria, pushing through the GOP-leadership plan by one vote.

Livingston said each chamber needed to pass identical bills to get them quickly to Hobbs as the funding deadline looms.

“When you do budget bills, the House and Senate have to be on the same page to get it to the governor. Without that, we don’t have bills,” he said.

However, Hobbs said she would veto the GOP plan, and she blasted Republicans in a press release.

“Today, Republicans forced through their unserious proposal in a stacked committee to slash services for Arizonans with disabilities, threaten Medicaid programs for middle-class children and people with severe mental illness, and gut down payment assistance for working families,” Hobbs said.

Livingston said there’s still room to make changes.

“The governor, frankly, doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” he said. “This is not the bill we will vote on on the floor. We will put an amendment on it. If she wants a bill she can sign, we can negotiate an amendment.”

The Senate Appropriations Committee passed a carbon copy of the GOP plan on a 6-4 party-line vote.

Both bills now go to the full chambers.