ARC faces trifecta of troubles

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Posted January 28, 2022 | By Rosemarie Dowell
Correspondent

The Advocacy Resource Center of Marion County, or ARC Marion Inc., has been serving people with disabilities for more than 60 years, but a trifecta of troubles has the agency worrying it may have to close it two remaining group homes.

ARC Marion, like similar non-profit organizations across the state, is dealing with a major staffing shortage due to a tight labor pool, abysmal Medicaid reimbursements rates, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which has stymied its fundraising efforts the past two years.

“At this point, we’re holding our own,” said ARC Marion CFO Frank Sofia. “But the only reason is the grants and loans we’ve been given for the Covid pandemic.”

“Fundraising is practically non-existent, the reimbursement rate is pathetic, and we’re getting killed in staffing like everyone else,” he said. “It’s hard to hire and keep employees.”

At one time, the agency had seven group homes scattered throughout the area, but financial and staffing issues have forced it to close all but two over the past several years and sell off the properties, using the proceeds for operating costs.

The displaced residents were transferred to other group homes or facilities. Sadly, four group home residents died from COVID in 2020.

The two remaining group homes left at its 2800 SE Maricamp Road campus are running at a dismal 50 percent capacity, all due to lack of adequate staffing, said Senior Program Manager Leah Craig. One home houses people with higher medical needs, the other is a men’s residence.

“The two homes we have left have a capacity of 30, but we are down to just 15 total residents now,” said Craig, who’s been with ARC Marion for ten years. “That’s all we’re able to house at this point until we’re able to hire and keep employees.”

The numbers are also as bleak as its Adult Day Training program.

Before the pandemic, ARC Marion served from 120 to 130 clients each day, now it is serving just 40, said Sofia. The daily rate for the ADT program is $40, but ARC Marion only receives $29 from the state.

“We’re $11 in the hole every day with every client,” he said.

In 2020, the non-profit organization, founded by a group of parents in 1959, came up with a solution to combat its mounting financial woes – sell off four-plus acres of a 16-acre tract it owned next door to its main campus for roughly $2.3 million.

The process has proven difficult though, with two major issues, and a lingering pandemic, hindering the sale.

The land was given to ARC Marion by Marion County in 1964, but the original deed stipulated the property would be used for the care, maintenance, teaching, and training of the developmentally disabled, but if those services stopped for six months or more, the land would revert back to the county.

Sofia said that issue seemed to be resolved after ARC Marion agreed, at Marion County’s request, to place the proceeds from the sale into an endowment and use the interest on the funds to keep the agency afloat.

But now, with ongoing issues related to the pandemic, Sofia said that agreement needs to be tweaked and is hopeful the Commission will allow ARC to keep some of the proceeds from the sale.

“We would need at least a third or half of the proceeds to get back to a near-normal level of operation,” he said. “The rest would go to the endowment.”

The other issue entails liens on the property from loans ARC Marion received through Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), administered by Marion County Community Services, which ARC asked to be released from, so a sale could go through on the property.

“Initially, they thought we were asking for the liens on the entire 16 acres to be released,” he said. “But we were only asking for the 4 acres to be released, so that’s cleared up now.”

COVID woes also caused a contract on the property to fall through when the potential buyer, The Ferber Company, a commercial development firm, wasn’t able to secure buyers or leases on the one-acre tracts it planned, due to worries about the economy amid the pandemic, said Sofia.

However, another buyer is on the horizon and once a contract is finalized, they’ll take it to the Commission, he said.

“We’ll see if they’ll let us keep some of the proceeds to help us get through the next few years,” Sophia said.

In the meantime, Sofia and Craig both said they are hopeful for a three to five percent reimbursement rate increase from the Florida legislature this year, even though it won’t be enough to help the struggling agency.

“A three-to-five percent increase is not enough,” said Sofia. “We need at least a 20 percent increase to really make an impact and allow us to keep our doors open.”

Group homes that serve people with IDDs, (intellectual and developmental delays) are regulated and funded by the Agency for Persons with Disabilities (APD) through its Medicaid waiver for Home and Community Based Services, (HCBS).

From March through October of 2021, 112 group homes closed in the State of Florida, with 57 owners/operators citing financial reasons and lack of staff for the closures, according to APD, which provided the number during a Dec. 1 meeting of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services.

“We’re not the only ones having a hard time,” said Craig. “Group homes are closing all across the state.”

A little help is on the horizon though.

This year’s Florida Agency for Health Care Administration’s $1.1 billion budget provides a one-time stipend for HCBS providers, and employers to use for staff recruitment and retainment. Funds will come from enhanced Federal Medical Assistance Percentages (FMAP) outlined under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

The application process to apply for funds opened last month.

“It’s great, but we can’t continue without a rate increase,” he said. “We keep telling APD the poop is gonna hit the fan one day.”

Craig said the Nov. 2020 voter approval of Florida Amendment 2, which incrementally raises the state’s minimum wage to $15 by 2026, has deeply affected ARC Marion’s ability to keep its doors open.

“The Medicaid reimbursements rate barely allow us to pay employees slightly over minimum wage now,” she said. “I don’t know what we are going to do when it goes up to $11 an hour in September.”

For now, ARC Marion is doing everything possible to keep its door open and continue serving the disabled community.

“It’s all about the clients,” said Sofia. “If you look at them and are around them every day you see how positive they always are; to know they may have to be put into an institution because we can’t keep our doors open is heartbreaking.”