Senate Approves Fee for Services to the Retarded

In its first budget-balancing vote of the new session, the Senate on Thursday approved a Wilson Administration bill to require parents of mentally retarded children living at home to pay a fee for services their youngsters receive.

The bill is the equivalent of a tax increase, argued Sen. Dan McCorquodale (D-San Jose), who led the unsuccessful opposition. The proposal went to the Assembly on a 27-6 vote.

But Senate leader David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), who reluctantly voted for the bill, told the Senate that as “distasteful” as it was, “this has to be the first of many future votes we are going to have to cast to balance the budget.”

The Administration of Gov. Pete Wilson proposed the measure in order to capture an estimated $34 million in federal aid for the developmentally disabled, most of whom are mentally retarded young people. Unless California enacts a sliding scale of co-payment fees for services, the U.S. government will not release the funds, the Senate was told.

Under the bill, parents of children living at home who receive medical, health, counseling and other services from regional diagnostic centers throughout California would pay fees if their taxable income was $50,000 a year or higher. Historically, parents have not been charged, regardless of income.

However, Sen. Robert B. Presley (D-Riverside), who carried the governor’s plan, told the Senate under questioning that no child would be cut off from services if parents refused to divulge their personal finances to the state.

The bill specified no amounts for the proposed fees, but set up a formula based on taxable income, number of people in the family and a percentage of the cost of services.

Intended to help overcome the state’s estimated budget shortage of up to $10 billion, the proposal would tap parents on a sliding scale for 5% of the costs of services provided. Organizations representing the developmentally disabled warned that passage of this bill, with the precedent established, could lead to legislation requiring payment from families making less than $50,000 a year.

Administration officials estimated that the co-payments would total about $115,000 this year and more in future years. The fees would be paid by the families of about 2,000 recipients of services.

Families would be exempt from the fees if their developmentally disabled children lived away from home at residential care facilities.

“The parents who suffer are those who keep their children at home,” McCorquodale argued. “If you put your child in a residential facility, you are not going to have to pay this fee.”

But Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles), who chairs the Human Services Committee, countered that for the state to obtain the $34 million from the federal government, “this is something we have to swallow. The fee is so small that it is not going to have an undue impact.”

Both supporters and opponents of the bill said that other states are receiving federal funds but have not implemented a similar payment system. They noted that California is challenging this.