If you’ve been on Facebook in the last two weeks, you may have seen some discourse surrounding the Community and Employment Support (CES) Waiver. Arkansas moms have taken to social media pleading with the Governor and other officials to take action and clear this waitlist. If you’re confused on what they’re referring to, read along as we dive in.
What is the CES Waiver?
To put it very simply, The Community and Employment Support (CES) Waiver offers services in your community to support people with intellectual or developmental disabilities with all major life activities. For adult recipients this means providing things like employment coaching, community programs that offer jobs to people with disabilities, and assistance living independently. For younger recipients, it can provide caregiving from qualified healthcare providers like home health nursing. For parents of children with intellectual or developmental disabilities, they can use the waiver for funding for accessibility purposes. This can include things like wheelchair ramps and other mobility aids in their homes. The waiver exists to provide care that keeps this vulnerable population of Arkansans from being institutionalized or confined to a nursing home for care. This is not only detrimental to the health of these Arkansans, but also a strain on the system as a whole.
The main problem with the waivers is that there is a very long waitlist for these services. Currently, it takes about 10 years from the time you are placed on the waiting list to the time you can actually begin accessing waiver services. This means that a child that is born with an intellectual or developmental disability, assuming they are put on the waitlist at the time of their birth, would, theoretically, not be able to access these waiver services until they were 10 years old. There are currently over 2,500 Arkansans on this waitlist that need services.
Past Legislation
In the past, the Arkansas Legislature has taken action to clear the waitlist. In 2019, the legislature passed Act 1033, which cleared the waitlist as it existed on March 1, 2019. This ended up clearing about 3000 people off of the waitlist. Additionally, Governor Asa Hutchinson made this a priority by launching a $37.6 million initiative to eliminate the waitlist by June 2025. The initial backlog of applicants was cleared by 2025, however, the waitlist has since filled back up.
What’s happening now?
Recently the CES Waivers and the waitlist in particular have gained a lot of attention on social media. Arkansas mothers have been sharing their stories. Among them is Paige Kordsmeier McCammon. McCammon’s posts have been going viral as she has been sharing her journey with her 2-year-old son Turner. Turner has a rare, progressive neurodegenerative disease and severe epilepsy. She has been posting on Facebook pleading with Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders to take action to clear this waitlist so that her son and others can get access to the care and services that they desperately need.
After Paige’s posts gained attention, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders called her and told her that there is not an immediate fix to the CES Waiver waitlist and that ending the waitlist would have to wait until the next legislative session. In Arkansas, regular legislative sessions take place during odd-numbered years. This means that the next legislative session would take place sometime next year. But what are Arkansas families supposed to do in the meantime?
Special Session
Under the Arkansas Constitution, the Governor has the sole authority to call a special session of the Arkansas Legislature. A special session is a meeting of the legislative body outside of its normal or regular calendar schedule. This is a power that Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders has utilized before, calling special sessions for tax cuts and to gut our Freedom of Information laws. McCammon and other Arkansas mothers have called on Governor Sanders to utilize this power and make clearing the CES Waiver Waitlist a priority. We, at For AR People, join them in this call.
Now anyone reading this may be thinking, “She can’t call a special session right now, the election is only two months away.” And to that, our response is this: Does Sarah Huckabee Sanders care more about winning an election or the people of Arkansas?
This is a developing story so make sure to check back and stay updated at forarpeople.org
