AUSTIN -- The state institutions for people with disabilities are failing to find community-based homes for many patients who want them, and have hired 10 state school employees who should’ve been ineligible because of previous abuse and neglect records, according to a state audit released today.
While the Department of Aging and Disability Services has gotten better about listening to patients who want to move from state schools into the community, the report indicates 70 percent of patients who asked to leave the state schools in fiscal year 2007 weren’t granted their wish.
And half of all residents in the state schools had no documentation expressing their living preferences by the end of that year.
“DADS should improve its documentation of required community living options discussions with [residents], as well as its documentation of the reasons for not providing community living arrangements,” the report notes.
The audit also found 10 state school workers listed in the state employee misconduct registry – meaning they had abuse or neglect records that should have made them ineligible for hire. The Dallas Morning News first identified several of these employees in May.
And thought the agency investigates the overwhelming majority of high priority abuse and neglect incidents within one day, as required by law, they’re not so timely with “level two” complaints. Over the last two years, only 41 percent of those were investigated within the required two-week time frame.
Laura Albrecht, a spokeswoman with the Department of Aging and Disability Services, said at the beginning of the year, the agency began “dramatically improving” the process for state school residents to move out into the community. Those changes are underway.
She said all of the unqualified employees the audit found have since been terminated – and that the agency is now doing annual reviews of the state “employee misconduct registry.”
The delay in investigating the “priority 2” complaints has to do with staffing, Ms. Albrecht said. The agency’s employee turnover rate in that area is high but dropping, she said.
“It’s a competitive market to get trained and qualified professionals,” she said.
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