Last night I had an opportunity to appear on Capital Tonight to lay out the arguments as to why the 3.2% COLA should not have any language attached that would provide funding strictly for direct care staff:
3 Major Reasons
1) It would unnecessarily impact supervisory staff that in many cases are doing the work of direct care. Also, we know that there are huge wage differentials in our field and many in leadership positions in agencies have relatively low salaries. Why would we or should we bifurcate hard working staffs when we are in a mental health workforce crisis?
2) The COLA is flexible so that the costs of doing business that impacts the workforce such as health insurance costs and other costs can be utilized by the leadership of the agency to help support the workforce in other ways without having to raise insurance costs for individuals
3) It is an administrative nightmare to implement. Staffs of state agencies will have to go position by position to figure out who gets the COLA. This will delay the much needed funding getting out the door by months.
Glenn Liebman, CEO of the Mental Health Association in New York State, joined Capital Tonight on Wednesday to discuss how the legislative budget proposals leave some behavioral health staff in the cold.
https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/politics/2024/03/20/n-y–legislative-budget-proposals-for-behavioral-health-staff
