Committee adds $23.1 million and containment measures for Developmental Disabilities Administration

Committee discussion singled out the Developmental Disabilities Administration (DDA) as a major issue in budget negotiations. Staff presented additional pages that add $23,100,000 in general funds and specified cost-containment actions for DDA to implement in fiscal 2027.

The chair described the DDA package as one of the session's two largest issues, alongside energy, saying the committee had analyzed a set of proposals and "used a belt" of measures to pursue the full $150 million target. He said the committee achieved roughly $124.1 million in containment measures and supplemented the plan with about $23.1 million in new general funds to reach the fiscal target.

Staff also presented specific policy language intended to guide enforcement of the cost-containment action related to dedicated hours and service allocations. The committee moved to adopt the additional pages and related policy language and voted to incorporate those pages into the budget package as amended.

Advocates and staff were described as having participated in the process; the chair emphasized the difficulty of choices and said the adopted package represented the least-bad set of options identified through negotiations with the administration and House members. The transcript does not record detailed debate from advocates or a roll-call vote listing member-by-member tallies.

Next steps identified by committee staff included conforming additional pages to the budget bill language and withdrawing committee narrative that no longer applies once the new funding and policy directions are in place.