Last week, I read a front-page headline in The Times Record indicating that there is an urgent need to increase the amount of funding for public defenders. The Maine Commission on Indigent Legal Services, or MCILS, is asking to double the funding for legal services to criminal defendants who cannot afford their own attorneys.
Josh Tardy, the commission chair, said the system is at a “critical point” and that if funding is not increased “the system will collapse.” I understand they are reaching a crisis, but to Mr. Tardy I say, “join the club.”
The system for people who have intellectual and developmental disabilities is collapsing. Recently, 45 group home residents living in Bangor and Belfast were given a notice of discharge based on the state funding system, and the inability of their provider to find staff for the rates the state is willing to pay. The article also goes on to mention that the need to attract new attorneys is “dire.” The need to attract new direct support staff is also dire and has been since well before the pandemic. Advocates of people with disabilities understand well the lack of state funding and an inability to attract staff due to low pay. Independence Association is short 31 full-time staff as I write this letter.
People with disabilities have extremely long waiting periods. In fact, people with disabilities are accustomed to waiting. Currently, there are over 2,300 people waiting for Section 21 services. Often these people languish without services until their elderly parents can no longer support them or worse, have passed away.
They are just as important as those individuals’ awaiting attorneys provided to them by the state. Funding for the ancillary services that support people with disabilities is underfunded to the point where people must wait inordinate times to see a psychiatrist, dentist, or other therapist. Even under crisis situations we have been told to wait.
The need for public defenders is obviously at a crisis point, but we must be responsible and prioritize the limited amount of funds available from the state. I see no situational differences in a person waiting for a limited number of public defenders and a person waiting to receive Section 21 services from the state. The intellectual difference is that the person waiting for a public defender has a voice and can complain, whereas the person with disabilities must depend on family members and advocates to make their voices heard.
When there is a need of crisis proportion and the state cannot find someone or a provider to support a person with I/DD, they contract with Florida and Massachusetts for support. Individuals are flown or driven to states where they can be supported. Perhaps that is the answer for the shortage of public defenders?
Ray Nagle is executive director if Independence Association in Brunswick.
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