Direct-support work deserves higher pay
We want to thank the Times Union editorial board for sounding the alarm in the editorial “New York’s care crisis,” Sept. 10. The conclusion that the need is now and increasingly urgent is spot-on, but the editorial did not include the crisis in the developmental disabilities sector.
Save Our Services is a statewide group of family members and providers who advocate for increased funding to pay a living wage to direct-service professionals who support people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Unfortunately, our pleas have, with a few limited exceptions, fallen on deaf ears.
Clarence Sundram, a nationally renowned expert on services for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, described direct service professionals’ work: “One might summarize the job description as requiring the wisdom of Solomon, the patience of Job and the caring of Florence Nightingale.”
Yet direct-service professionals earn only a dollar or two above minimum wage. This was not always the case. In 2010, direct-service professionals’ starting pay was 50% above minimum wage.
Dramatic increases are needed to make up for a decade of neglect and stagnant wages. Additionally, while direct-service professionals employed by nonprofits provide 85% of services to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, they earn substantially less than those employed by the state.
Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Legislature must include a substantial investment in direct-service professional wages in the upcoming state budget and, equally important, a plan to bring their wages to a level commensurate with what is required of them.
Karen Nagy Rexford Margaret Raustiala Nissequogue Members, Save Our Services
End the plague of “buffooneritis”
One has to wonder why so many people in this country vote for buffoons. Without naming them, you know who the buffoons are, the ones infected with the not-so-rare malady known as buffooneritis.
Like a plague, they show up everywhere — in the newspapers, on television, on social media, on billboards, on legislative bills — reveling in their acts of doing what only buffoons do so well: causing chaos. You can’t escape their antics, their escapades, their shenanigans, their rants and other forms of buffoonish behavior.
Of course, I’m mostly (but by no stretch of the imagination 100%) referring to the buffoons who inhabit the hallowed halls of the U.S. Congress; in particular, the ones who have graduated from the elite Buffoonington School of Buffoonery. Embarrassingly, they fall all over themselves trying to outdo what the other buffoons do. It’s like whatever you do, I can out-buffoon you better.
Oft times, the Buffoon-of-the Week (an honor given to those who have gained distinction via exceptional use of buffoonery schemes and conspiracies) passes the baton and tutors the art of buffoonery to eager buffoons-in-waiting who aspire to emulate the Buffoon—in-Chief (again, you know who that is), thus assuring that buffoonerism will always be available for those constituents who, because of who they vote for, don’t really care one whit about the U.S. Constitution, our democracy, the rule of law and the American way of life.
Bill Bronk East Greenbush