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John's usual--
Well, we all survived our first week without Rhonda. I know that there were some transportation glitches as we staff got used to our new assignments. If you were one of the people that had to be patient with us, thank you for that! I do need to talk a little bit about our community employment transportation, because I know that there was some frustration with longer trip times.
It's not a secret that CLI is having a hard time finding new employees. We're picky because we need to be. We are short-staffed. Also, community employment transportation is an expensive service (staff time+vehicle cost+fuel+insurance). For these two reasons, it is necessary for passengers to ride share. This means that there may be 1 or 2 other stops on your way home, which means that your ride home will take longer than a typical taxi ride home. We know that sometimes there is an important reason why someone might have to be home at a certain time on certain days. Let us know ahead of time about that and if we can run a special trip on that day, we will! Public transportation in rural areas is problematic. There's a reason why there aren't many transportation providers. For CLI it's tough to cover the costs and juggle staff around. But we also know that for our clients, it can be inconvenient. Please let me know about frustrations and I promise to do what I can. We know how important your ability to get to & from your job is.
Thanks to the advocacy of Ohio's DD system (such as private providers, County Boards of DD & DODD)-- Ohio will be significantly raising the reimbursement rates for DD services. This is a big deal because other than a 2% increase during the pandemic, these rates have been unchanged for more than 20 years! CLI is sending out thank you cards, but we'd appreciate if some of our clients and families would also make their appreciation known. Even with these increases, CLI is going to have to watch our loose change, but without the increases I don't know how long we could continue to do what we do. Part of why providers like CLI have a hard time recruiting staff is that our jobs often pay less than easier jobs elsewhere. Nothing good or long term will happen unless we can make DSP jobs careers worth having.
If you are willing to write a thank you note-- here are some key names & addresses:
Representative Dick Stein, Ohio House of Representatives, 77 S. High Street, Floor 13, Columbus, OH 43215
Representative DJ Swearington, Ohio House of Representatives, 77 S. High Street, Floor 13, Columbus, OH 43215
Senator Nathan Manning, Senate Building 1 Capitol Square Ground Floor 039. Columbus, Ohio 43215
Director Hauck, Ohio Department of DD, 30 E Broad St, Columbus, OH 43215
Superintendent Kari Smith, HCBDD, 306 South Norwalk Road West, Norwalk, Ohio 44857
That's all I have for this week-- other than please join us this Friday evening for our first cornhole tournament. It's a good time and you don't have to be great to have fun. Happy birthday to all the CLI clients & staff who were born this month. There's a bunch!
John
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