Candidate forum tackles needs of elderly, people with disabilities

Aug. 30--Those seeking seats in the Indiana General Assembly, whether for the first time or for re-election, on Monday heard that the caregiver industry has a problem.

"I think we really are at a point where we are in a crisis," Kim Dodson, executive director of the Arc of Indiana, said during a Monday night candidate forum on aging and disabilities at Sherwood Oaks Christian Church. "We really do not have enough people caring for people with disabilities and the elderly population."

And Steve Rahko, a lecturer at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business, put that problem into perspective.

By 2020, he said, caregiving is set to be the largest industry, surpassing even retail. Twenty years after that, in 2040, there's a projected gap of 1.83 million people between those who need services and those who can provide them -- unless legislators start doing something now.

One of the biggest problems with the workforce, he said, is the low pay. The average wage is about $9 to $10 nationally for caregivers, which simply isn't enough and creates massive turnover.

Lawmakers, Rahko said, need both to help set a wage proportional to the work those professionals are doing and to develop professional career pathways for the industry.

Jill Giffin, president of the Greater Bloomington-area chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, added she hopes legislators can find a way to give people the incentive to go into psychiatry, the way they did with teaching during the most recent legislative session, and maybe raise the amount of debt forgiveness for people who go into case management.

Kerry Conway, executive director of Area 10 Agency on Aging, laid out three specific things on which she said legislators should focus:

--Improving the quality of adult protective services, which she described as being "one headline away from a political disaster" and a system that provides no path to safety for adults in the state.

--Making the guardianship system consistent.

--Passing legislation to allow the Monroe County Council to enact a county option income tax to support more public transit options in the county, a move that also would serve Owen, Putnam and Lawrence counties as they are part of the Rural Transit system.

Those three actions would affect "all of the populations we're talking about today," Conway said.

Eight candidates who attended the forum all agreed this is a major issue, although they didn't necessarily agree on how to solve it.

Bill Breeden, a Democrat running for Indiana House District 46 -- which includes the northwestern part of Monroe County, large portions of Owen and Clay counties and a portion of Vigo County -- said there needs to be a redistribution of funds. Legislators always seem to find money for people at the top, he said, but not for people at the bottom. He said government needs to run like a social service, rather than a business concerned about profits and large surpluses.

State Rep. Bob Heaton, a Republican from Terre Haute who currently holds the District 46 seat, said the state's $2.24 billion reserve might mean that while lawmakers still need to be good stewards, they perhaps could give more.

He, along with other lawmakers, stressed that the process to influence the biennial budget, which members of the Indiana General Assembly will craft next year, begins now.

Penny Githens, a Democrat running for Indiana House District 60 -- which is made up of portions of Monroe and Morgan counties -- said that, if elected, she would focus on rejuvenating public education, repairing and rebuilding infrastructure and increasing wages, all things that would have a positive impact on people with disabilities.

She referred to her efforts in pushing for mandatory insurance coverage for autism in promising to work to make sure government serves the people.

"I'm a fighter, and I'll fight to make things better," Githens said.

State Rep. Matt Pierce, a Democrat from Bloomington who holds the seat in Indiana House District 61 -- which represents much of Monroe County -- said it comes down to what he sees as the core job of a legislator -- "to try to improve the quality of life for as many people as possible."

"For me, it's trying to find very practical ways to do that," Pierce said, pointing specifically to the idea of a government that allows individuals to be autonomous and live as independently as possible.

He added that while legislators have decried a lack of resources for years when talking about funding shortages for the kinds of issues addressed Monday, it comes down to priorities and lawmakers who are willing to cut revenues but not increase spending.

"This is a matter of political will," Pierce said. "If you have the political will to cut taxes for corporate entities, you ought to have the political will to find the funding for services for people who need them."

State Rep. Jeff Ellington, a Bloomington Republican who represents Indiana House District 62 --which is made up of the majority of Greene County and portions of Monroe, Martin and Daviess counties -- indicated a willingness to do just that.

Ellington pledged to push for something for psychiatric workers that would be similar to the scholarships legislators offered this year to address the teacher shortage. One big reason is because this is a personal issue for him, as someone who has worked with Area 10 Agency on Aging and whose brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia in high school, he said.

"Deep down, I have a soft spot in my heart, and always will, for these types of budgets," he said.

Steve Lindsey, a Democrat who's seeking the District 62 seat, also has a personal connection to the issue, having helped his wife take care of her brother, who had Down syndrome.

"We've got to take care of people that are doing the caregiving," Lindsey said, having spoken earlier in the night about a need to redistribute the way the state currently allocates its resources to use the money in a smarter way.

State Rep. Eric Koch, a Republican from Bedford who is running for Indiana Senate District 44 -- which includes portions of Monroe, Brown, Lawrence and Jackson and Bartholomew counties -- said innovation will be key.

During the most recent session, Koch authored legislation that helps alleviate potentially stressful situations between law enforcement officers and people with disabilities, and he said he's drafting legislation to allow supported decision-making, a system under which people with disabilities have more independence.

The issues, though, aren't new, and they'll take time to solve, state Sen. Mark Stoops said.

More importantly, solving them will necessitate a willingness to spend money, said the Bloomington Democrat, who represents Indiana Senate District 40, which encompasses much of Monroe County.

"Any amount of money and resources we apply to this will save us money in the long run," Stoops said.

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