State Auditor Report Released on Department of Developmental Services

DDS Has Not Ensured Regional Centers Have the Necessary Resources to Effectively Serve Californians with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
 
The California State Auditor’s recent audit of the Department of Developmental Services (DDS) confirmed what both the regional centers and the Association of Regional Center Agencies (ARCA) have been saying for years: regional centers “have neither sufficient staff nor funding. As a result, service coordinators at the regional centers are responsible for assisting more consumers than the maximum set in state law, which limits the total amount of time that service coordinators can spend to assist their consumers.”
 
Additional audit highlights include the following:

• DDS has not ensured that regional centers monitor vendors, and therefore cannot be assured of the quality of services that the regional centers' vendors deliver to consumers
• Neither DDS nor the regional centers monitor whether consumers experience difficulties in accessing services.
• DDS has not provided adequate oversight of regional centers' processes for resolving consumer rights violations. And regional centers did not consistently inform consumers about the process for filing complaints, and frequently took too long to investigate complaints.
• DDS should also ensure that regional centers make timely decisions on applicants' eligibility for services. 

In conclusion, DDS has been aware of many of these issues, but has not always taken timely and adequate actions to address them. DDS generally agreed with the auditor’s recommendations and indicated that it will take action to implement many of them, setting a number of deadlines for the end of 2022 and through 2023 to address the issues identified in the audit, including:

• Training and policy development for ongoing vendor monitoring
• Establishing standards for measuring consumer’s access to services
• Issuing guidance and developing best practices for providing required info to consumers and completing complaint and appeal investigations by the statutory deadline.

The one area DDS disagreed with the auditor’s recommendation was annually reviewing and updating as necessary the core staffing formula to ensure adequacy of regional center staff’s salaries. While DDS is aware of this problem, it did not take steps to address it until recently, and the steps it has taken to date do not represent long-term solutions. This issue will need continued advocacy.
 
The end goal is to ensure that regional centers are able to effectively serve Californians with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
 
Click here to view the entire audit: http://auditor.ca.gov/reports/2021-107/index.html

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