The massive shots in a federal agency that supports community life efforts for people with disabilities are promoting concerns that funds will be interrupted and that the programs could be forced to close.
Almost 50% of the administration of the Department of Health and Human Services of the United States for community life was fired this week, including the budget offices, policies, evaluation and communications of the organization, according to Alison Barkoff, professor at the George Washington University who directed the Community Life Administration under the Biden Administration.
The shots were part of a wide reorganization of HHS, which announced last week that would allow 10,000 workers to be. In general, the agency indicated that it would be reduced from 82,000 to 62,000 full -time employees by taking into account early layoffs, purchases and retirements since the Trump administration took over.
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The plan includes dismantling the administration of community life, which was established in 2012 in an effort to gather aging and disability programs throughout HHS. The agency finances and works with more than 2,500 community organizations throughout the country, including independent life centers, protection and defense systems, developmental disabilities and more.
«These RIFs will have a devastating impact on the ACL administrators of the programs and the people who benefit from them,» said Barkoff, referring to the force reduction notices that many employees received. «It will impact ACL capacity to obtain funds for critical services, provide technical assistance to beneficiaries and help shape policies that affect people with disabilities, such as Medicaid.»
The moment of change is especially worrying, he said.
«I am particularly concerned about the immediate impact on the people who depend on the critical LCA programs because the financing for the rest of the fiscal year, the financing recently approved by the Congress in the resolution of the Congress, had not yet been distributed before the end of the budget staff,» Barkoff said.
The HHS representatives did not answer questions about how many employees of the Community Life Administration are being dismissed, how what will be left of the agency will be divided or what will happen to the financing that the agency has not yet disseminated to the programs.
«The critical programs that support the elderly and people with disabilities within the Community Life Administration (ACL) will be integrated into other HHS agencies, including the administration for children and families (ACF), assistant secretary of Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) and the Service Centers of Medicare and Medicaid (CMS),» said an HHS official last week. «This consolidation allows the department to better meet the current health needs of vulnerable populations throughout the country.»
However, the casual nature of changes is to increase alarms. Representatives of multiple disability defense groups said that the plan took them by surprise to break the administration for community life and more than 450 groups He wrote to Congress urging the opposition to effort.
It is assumed that many programs financed through the Community Life Administration, including the Development Disabilities Councils, will receive their prize warning at this time of the year, indicating how its financing will see, said Jill Jacobs, who served as commissioner of the administration of community housing on disabilities between 2021 and 2024 and now is executive director of the National Association of the National Association of the National Association of the National Association of the National Association of the National Association of the National Association of the National Association. Development discabilizations.
«All the people who handle these awards were fired, so how will we get those funds?» She said. «I recognize that having a thinner government and having thinner programs is a priority for this administration and I understand it, but to make these changes without publishing any type of plan or any kind of participation of anyone who knows how these programs work, I cannot imagine that this can happen without the closure of programs.»
Programs supported through the administration for community experience focus on everything, from accessible transport to alternatives to protection, the care of respirators, the improvement of home -based services and the community and the improvement of the direct care force.
«If everyone disappears, we are seeing real problems. Even if there is only a momentary failure, we will have real problems,» Jacobs said.
Out of the administration for life in the community, the defenders of disability have also raised concerns about the plans to have a new assistant secretary accused of combating the «waste, fraud and abuse» that supervises the HHS office for civil rights, as well as changes in the administration of mental health services and substance abuse and the administration of resources and health services.
In the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were cuts in the National Center for Birth Defects and Disabilities of Development, including the elimination of the Disability and Health Promotion Branch, which worked to promote «health and full participation in society by people with disabilities in life.»
«We are deeply concerned about the dismissals reported in the CDCs, particularly the significant cuts in the National Center on Birth Defects and Disabilities of Development. This center plays a fundamental role in support for research, provides essential information and promotes public health initiatives related to autism,» said Kristyn Roth, marketing director of the Autism Society of America. «Any reduction in these efforts could have serious consequences for the community of autism through the loss of evidence based on detection and interventions, and support for the system (domestic and community services).»
It is not clear what additional impacts impacts on the National Health Institutes, the Medicare and Medicaid service centers and other divisions could have for people with disabilities.
