GEORGIA

Georgia has implemented a number of initiatives during the last several years to increase community resources and services for people with disabilities. These activities range from moving young people (under age 21) from state mental retardation institutions into community residential settings; reducing waiting lists for the Community Care Services program (CCSP), which serves Medicaid-eligible elderly people; and assessing nursing home residents to determine their ability to move to community placements and providing transition funds for their moves.

These actions have followed recommendations in January 2002 of an Olmstead Planning Committee that was composed of consumers, advocates, providers and representatives of several state agencies. The lead agencies have been the Department of Human Resources (DHR) and the Department of Community Health. In an executive order issued in June 2002, Governor Sonny Perdue (R) designated the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget to oversee the state's efforts in regard to Olmstead initiatives. The same executive order instructed state agencies to work together to ensure the state's Olmstead compliance.

Georgia released an Olmstead strategic plan in March 2003 that sets the strategic direction and broad parameters for addressing community-integrated service delivery. The plan includes goals in state planning and oversight, identification and assessment of eligible individuals, assurance of individual choice, operation of waiting lists, and individual plan development and implementation.

Severe budget shortfalls forced Governor Perdue to order state agencies to reduce spending by 2.5 percent for FY 2004 and another 5 percent for FY 2005. However, the governor requested $9.6 million in his FY 2004 budget, which the legislature approved, for Olmstead initiatives. These activities include providing community-based residential care to 145 private nursing home residents who are able to live in a community setting and have expressed a desire to move, and making Community Care Services Program services available to 84 nursing home residents who are making the transition to the community.

The funds also are being used to transition 50 adults with developmental disabilities to community services and 15 individuals with serious mental illness from state hospitals to assisted living placements in the community. The state also plans to expand Medicaid waiver program services to people on waiting lists for those services, and expand services to 50 people with developmental disabilities on a short-term waiting list.

In 2003, previously appropriated funds for Olmstead initiatives were used to create four state-run community homes for 40 hard-to-place, severely emotionally disturbed adolescents who were living in state hospitals and to provide transitional funding to move all individuals under age 21 from state mental retardation institutions into community residential services. Georgia also continues to invest more than $80 million annually in federal and state funds to serve more than 16,000 people in their homes through the Community Care Services Program. Expenditures total $206 million for Community Mental Health Services; $179 million for Community Developmental Disabilities Services; and $100 million for Community Addictive Disease Services.

Georgia received a $1.4 million federal Systems Change grant in 2002, which it has used to complete a Medication Administration program curriculum and policy development and to develop curriculum for mental health peer supporters working in hospitals. The grant also is assisting the state to implement the planning phase of a supported housing pilot program for adults with serious mental illness. In the second year of the grant, the state plans to begin implementing a single point of access system and continue the housing pilots.

The legislature authorized a restructuring of the Georgia mental health and developmental disabilities system (House Bill 498) in 2002, which calls for more statewide consistency in service availability and quality for this population. In February 2003, the Department of Human Resources began to implement a new system for intake, assessment and support coordination. A team approach is being used to determine eligibility for services, assess the level of care an individual needs, develop service plans, and provide support coordination. As part of the team, consumers and their families are to help guide the development of the service plan. State officials describe the new system as laying the groundwork for "taking Georgia a step closer to self determination."

The 2003 legislature appropriated in the FY 2004 budget (House Bill 122) $8.6 million to facilitate those moving from institutions to community-based settings, $4.08 million for service expansions to accommodate people waiting for community-based services, and $3.6 million to provide community-based residential care for those individuals who are making the transition into the community.