Gov. Schwarzenegger’s budget butchery cuts services from IHSS recipients.  After November 1, 2009, people with an overall functional index score below 2 will no longer qualify for IHSS.  People who receive a functional index ranking below 4 for any domestic service will no longer receive that particular service.

Functional index ranking is how the county determines the level of needs people have.  As part of the assessment for services, the county determines the person’s ability to complete certain tasks, such as housework, laundry, shopping and errands, meal preparation and cleanup, eating, bathing and grooming.  Also they assess the person’s control over respiration, memory, bowel, bladder, orientation and judgment.

Now, in addition to assessing need, the “functional ranking system” is being used to take away services from the people that need them.  Let’s take, for example, an individual who has a “3” ranking for sweeping floors, a “4” for changing bed linens, and a “5” for cleaning bathrooms.  Under the new law, the individual would no longer receive service for sweeping floors because the ranking for this service is “3” and therefore too low.  The individual would continue to receive service for changing bed linens and cleaning bathrooms.  

There is also a “functional index score” (as opposed to the functional ranking index just mentioned) which is now being used as a line drawn to sever services from those who need them.  After a social worker assesses a person’s needs, the county gives a “functional index rank from “1” to “6” for each of the tasks.  This ranking is then averaged out.  The result is called the “functional index score.”  Effective November 1, 2009, the new law eliminates IHSS services entirely for individuals with a functional index score below level 2.    

On October 1, 2009, Disability Rights California and other organizations filed a lawsuit to stop these cuts.  We are hopeful and hard at work to reverse this dark ideology as soon as possible.  

This narrow vision couldn’t come at a worse time.  At a time when the State should be preparing for growth nothing is being done to prepare for the exponential rate of growth in the populations of people who rely on these services to live from day to day.  Instead of alleviating the pressures that the future burdens us with, the Governor shoots holes in the bucket that he asks us to fill.

However, we are happy to say that persons who receive protective supervision or paramedical services will not have their IHSS services cut regardless of their function index rankings or score.