Officials at First Step of Hot Springs say an unknown number of its special needs clients could go without adequate nourishment for an indefinite period of time if the partial shutdown of the federal government continues.
Established in 1958, First Step is a nonprofit organization that provides children and adults with developmental disabilities with developmental treatment and therapeutic service in a community setting, according to its website.
First Step provides over 370 local clients with two nutritious meals per day -- breakfast and lunch. Nutrition is especially important for those with developmental disabilities in order to make progress, the officials said.
Providing these meals is made possible due to money provided by federal grants but, with the shutdown in effect, funding is only guaranteed through the end of March.
Since it relies on state and federal funds, First Step is not permitted to save funds for emergencies, such as the shutdown.
Linda Kemp, chief operating officer at First Step Hot Springs since 2001, is resolute, but worried.
"The USDA funds us with two components of how we feed the adults and the children. We just got word that they will pay for March, and that's it. Past that, we are up in the air," she said.
"We are still going to feed the children and adults because in a lot of cases, these are the most nutritional meals they are going to get during the day," Kemp said.
Kemp has tried to solve the issue, to no avail.
"I have emailed Tom Cotton, Sen. Boozman, and Bruce Westerman, and have told them everything and gotten the standard reply, that 'They should compromise and give the president his wall and everything will open back up,'" said Kemp.
First Step Hot Springs CEO Brett Chancellor said that not just this, but all services may be affected if the shutdown continues.
Chancellor said First Step was already also facing state cuts to Medicaid.
"The governor has decided that he is going to part manage care, so he implemented the entities called PASSEs. There's four of them that registered with the state and were supposed to get their paperwork in. Then the Medicaid recipients would be attributed to these PASSEs," said Kemp.
There was a recent change in Medicaid recipient coverage at the state level. Recipients are being batched into smaller groups to private institutions to handle their coverage, called PASSEs (Provider-Led Arkansas Sharing Entity) that receive government funding.
These private sectors are no longer receiving promised funds. Therefore, these private institutions will leave their attributed clients without coverage until those recipients are assigned to another PASSE.
Many at First Step rely heavily on Medicaid for the cost of their care, and one PASSE has already dropped its clients.
"One of the PASSEs who already have Medicaid recipients attributed to them have said they will not be a PASSE anymore. So there are all those Medicaid recipients that have been attributed to this PASSE. What are they going to do with them? With the continuation of service, how is that going to happen? Because it's going to take a minute to get them attributed to another PASSE. It's an abject mess," Kemp said.
"It's very stressful right now," Kemp said.
Local on 01/21/2019