FAYCO fighting state cuts

As Illinois municipalities fight to retain state income tax, a local entity is also battling proposed cuts by the state government.
Officials at FAYCO Enterprises, which has as its mission “to integrate people with disabilities and other life issues into the community and enrich their quality of life with choice and independence,” are lobbying against about $115 million in proposed cuts to community services in the state.
Those include $76.25 million in cuts from programs that serve individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities and $39.53 million in cuts for programs helping individuals with mental illness.
FAYCO Executive Director Bob Lindberg said that shortages in state funding have already caused FAYCO to stop accepting clients in the three-county area it serves.
FAYCO operates a sheltered workshop and three homes for its clients in Vandalia, a satellite facility and one home in Montgomery County and two homes in Bond County.
Due to the state’s cutbacks in funding, FAYCO has already made the decision to “hang on to the clients we are currently serving,” Lindberg said, explaining that the corporation is unable financially to take on more individuals as they graduate from high school through special education programs.
“Our waiting list is growing,” Lindberg said. “We already have at least 80 people out there looking for services.
“The schools are able to place some of those individuals into jobs, but there are many that they cannot. The students are put through a good special education program, but then, they have no support program,” he said.
Lindberg said the state cuts threaten FAYCO’s ability to keep sufficient staff to meet the needs of this area’s developmentally disabled.
FAYCO has already had to implement a freeze on hirings, he said, and more cuts would likely mean a smaller staff.
At this point, FAYCO has been able to avoid staff cuts. “I think we can avoid cuts,” Lindberg said, adding that any vacancies that occur through resignations or retirements would likely not be filled.
“But, at some point, all bets are off,” he said.
“We’re looking at freezing positions, our staff don’t get raises and our client waiting list is growing and growing,” Lindberg said. “It gets scarier and scarier.”
In a letter to Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, Lindberg said that the average wage for community support programs “was 28 percent below the Illinois state institutions’ average, and just above the poverty level for a family of four.
“We have lost ground there,” he said in the letter. “In our case, more than 75 percent of our staff earned less than that, and yet, was asked to provide services that have been nationally recognized for excellence.”
The loss of a case management position means “we can’t serve as many people, and there is some case coordination that is lost,” he said.
If FAYCO cannot serve those who graduate from high school, many of those may likely end up in some type of long-term care setting or, even worse, in prison, he said.
“I hope those people end up on the doorstep of (U.S. Congressman) John Shimkus (R-Ill.) and on the doorsteps of our state legislators,” Lindberg said.
Back in the 1950s, he said, developmentally disabled individuals had nothing like the sheltered workshops and independent living facilities offered by FAYCO.
“Then, parents started being advocates and creating places like FAYCO,” Lindberg said.
“But, with the proposed cuts, I see history repeating itself, that these people would have no where to go,” he said.