Advocates fear chaos after Rauner home health care ruling
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) - Gaileen Roberts' daughter Jody has cerebral palsy, is quadriplegic and developmentally delayed. But she can live at home because her mother earns a taxpayer-subsidized $13 an hour as her caregiver.
Sometimes Roberts works overtime, and as of January, the federal government requires extra work be compensated at time-and-a-half pay, so the cash-strapped state of Illinois has banned all but emergency overtime pay beginning Sunday. That means Roberts can be paid to take care of her daughter in the morning, but another person must come in for the evening, when Jody returns from afternoon basic-skills training, so Roberts doesn't go over her allotted time.
Where can she find someone to do physical, often unpleasant work for $13 an hour and part-time, at that?
"I'm pretty much going to quit looking," said Roberts, who lives in western Illinois. "They're not out there."
Home health care workers and their union say a working, reliable system is threatened by the decision of Gov. Bruce Rauner's administration not to allow overtime work at time-and-a-half pay for extra hours.
While it could save millions of dollars for a state that is billions of dollars in deficit, social service advocates say it could cause "chaos" among the workers and their customers.
An Associated Press analysis of records obtained from the Department of Human Services under the Freedom of Information Act shows that overtime pay could cost the state $14 million a year. Up to half of that could be covered by federal Medicaid reimbursement, but the state doesn't know how many clients qualify.
The AP analysis shows that of 24,000 home workers, 27 percent worked more than 40 hours one or more times during the first half of the year which began July 1. On average, each claimed an extra 166 hours through early January - paid at the regular, straight-time rate. Annualized at time-and-a-half, that's about $2,000 more per person.
The no-overtime move will not only save money but curb timesheet abuse, Human Services spokeswoman Marianne Manko said. Service providers say they can't find people willing to do low-paying work that involves such taxing and distasteful tasks as lifting clients from beds and cleaning them up.
"It's one of the lowest-paid jobs in the state with no paid time off," said Terri Harkin, vice president for home care at SEIU Healthcare Illinois, which represents the workers. "There will be mass chaos where thousands of consumers will no longer be able to rely on their personal assistants."
Advocates say living at home allows disabled residents to retain dignity and save the state money. SEIU estimates home care at $16,000 a year, compared with $52,000 in a nursing home.
Overtime will still be paid in extraordinary situations and no one will receive less care, Rauner administration officials said.
"We have providers who are putting down 19 hours a day," Manko said. "That means they're not eating, not taking a shower, not watching television or relaxing, or sleeping, or they're doing it all in five hours a day." At that workload level, she said, "it becomes a safety issue."
That would include providers such as Elaine Walker of South Holland, in Chicago's south suburbs, who cares for daughters Dasia, 22, and Melissa, 20, both with cerebral palsy. The AP analysis found that from July to January, the 52-year-old Walker reported working an average of 18 ˆ½ hours a day. She estimates she earned about $75,000 in straight-time pay in 2015 for the four people in her home. She alternates care between the two women and while she stays on the clock to grab a shower or lie down with one of them, she's always "on call."
"I'm not going to apologize because I'm hands-on and I'm there for my daughters," Walker said.
Gaileen Roberts earned $28,000 last year and the AP analysis shows she works about 200 hours overtime annually. Under the new rules she and others will just have to do the work without pay if no one can be found to work the hours beyond 40 a week.
Andre Sykes, a Springfield personal assistant, said he won't abandon the 29-year-old man - who suffered a head injury as a teenager - he cares for just because the clock says his paid day is over.
"If he (soils) himself, I'm not going to leave him because you say I can't have overtime," Sykes said. "I'm going to clean him up."
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