While budgets for social services are being scrutinized and slashed, spending at the regional centers in California receives no such public oversight. In fact, even as the state's developmental centers continue to be closed and residents moved out of the few remaining -- ostensibly to save money, spending at California's 21 regional center systems seems to be flying high.
An article in the Sacramento Bee this weekend spotlights the issue (California regional centers spend without public scrutiny, by Jack Chang) and underscores the concerns of many that the move away from the established developmental centers to the regional center system may not in fact provide the cost savings the state seeks -- while at the same time, the level of care for the state's developmentally disabled is not being maintained.
Putting the care of such a vulnerable population in the hands of private facilities, albeit non-profit, with limited public oversight is a decision certainly worth re-evaluating before the last developmental centers are abandoned and that opportunity of choice in care eliminated.
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