Linn supervisors will adopt Options recommendations

CEDAR RAPIDS - Linn County's Board of Supervisors on Wednesday applauded the year of work by its Options Future Planning Task Force and the board said it will approve recommendations next week that will close the Options program's sheltered workshop by mid-2016 at the latest.

The Options program serves about 200 developmentally disabled adults during the workweek, and about half of the adults use the program's 'day-habilitation” activity services and aren't able to participate in the sheltered workshop.

John Brandt, the county's executive director of community services, told the supervisors on Wednesday - as he told family members of Options clients at a meeting on Tuesday evening - that the plan is for the day-hab program to continue at Options, though it will need to be redesigned to better integrate clients into the community during the day, he said.

Supervisors Ben Rogers and John Harris were among the 16 Options task force members and both attended Tuesday evening's meeting with family members of Options clients and some clients.

'There still is some anxiety, but I think a lot less than six months or a year ago,” Harris said of the sentiment he heard from family members.

Rogers said he had sought a waiver without success from the U.S. Department of Justice so that the Options program's sheltered workshop might continue. He said he also sought without success to secure subsidies for the relatively more costly Options program from the board of the new nine-county Mental Health and Disability Services of the East Central Region of Iowa.

Brand and Mechelle Dhondt, Linn County's director of mental health and developmental disability services who is the new chief executive officer of the nine-county regional board, explained to Options family members on Tuesday evening as they have to the supervisors that the federal government no longer supports sheltered workshops because they isolate adults from the community rather than integrating adults into it.

The workshops also pay sub-minimum wages, which the federal government opposes, they have said.

A third challenge is unique to Options because its 51 employees are relatively high-paid public employees in an industry where every other provider in Iowa is a non-profit organization or private company with relatively less costly employees.

Federal and state reimbursement rates won't cover Options' program costs, Brandt told the supervisors.

Rogers said Options' sheltered workshop isn't closing tomorrow, and so families of clients have time to select from other community programs, he said.

Supervisor Lu Barron said the county's Options program has been 'a very good program and we can be proud of that.” Now the county can move forward, she said.

Brandt said his office would be sending information to Options families about the other service providers in the county. He said a second task force will continue to help families and clients to make transitions to something new.