The Oaks Group supports the application of Phillip Campbell and Dr. Mary Cerreto for the positions of Director and Deputy Director of the Department of Developmental Services. Following is their Statement of Interest. If you feel you can support this application, please feel free to distribute to others who would like to see effective, visionary, and innovative leadership at the Department of Developmental Services. Also, letters of support are needed to Governor Davis at:
Governor Gray Davis
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone (916) 445-2841
Fax (916) 445-4633
Thanks,
Bill Coffelt, President
The Oaks Group
We, Mr. Philip Campbell and Dr. Mary C. Cerreto, are applying as a team for the positions of Director (Campbell) and Deputy Director (Cerreto) of the Department of Developmental Services within Governor Gray Davis' Administration. Responding to legislative mandates and significant financial demands on the developmental centers, California is on the brink of major decisions that will greatly impact the quality of life of people with disabilities and their families. Having worked as a team (Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner) for the Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation within the Administration of Governor William Weld, we think we have the skills, experience, energy and enthusiasm to work with the Governor, the Legislature, and the coalition of the state's major stakeholders to assist California to:
maximize federal revenue;
. work cooperatively and supportively with the Health Care Financing Administration;
· assure certification of the developmental centers;
· implement a consumer-centered, outcome-oriented quality assurance system;
· complete the legislatively mandated rate reform process;
· assure training and increased compensation for direct support staff;
· implement user-friendly and responsive technology;
· foster the self-determination of individuals with disabilities; and
· develop high quality state-operated community services for people with disabilities.

Values and Principles. We believe that it is important for our constituency to view the Department of Developmental Services as comprised of people dedicated to creating, in cooperation with others, innovative and genuine opportunities for individuals with developmental disabilities to participate fully and meaningfully in, and contribute to, their communities as valued members. Toward the achievement of these outcomes with and for people with developmental disabilities and their families, we will work to ensure that the DDS:

· promotes the right of people with mental retardation to exercise choice and to make meaningful decisions in their lives;
· respects the dignity of each individual through vigorous promotion of the human and civil rights which, in part, strives to keep people free from abuse or neglect;
· ensures that adequate services and flexible resources are non-intrusive, cost effective and provided by qualified, trained personnel to meet individual needs and preferences;
· empowers individuals and their families to speak out for themselves and others, initiate ideas, have choices and make decisions about needed supports;
· recognizes that the ethnic and cultural diversity of each individual must be valued and respected;
· enhances public awareness of the valuable roles persons with mental retardation assume in society through promotion of physical and social integration;
· supports the dignity of achievement that results from risk-taking and making informed choices;
· recognizes that realizing one's potential takes courage, skills, and supports;
· operates according to accepted management practices; and
· recognizes that services providing meaningful benefits to individuals require a commitment to ongoing monitoring and evolutionary change.
Maximization of Federal Revenue. During our Administration (1991-1997), federal revenues from the Home and Community Based Waiver jumped 400%, from $28 million to $138 million. Our Waiver renewal, approved in June of 1997, will bring in $1.1 billion in federal revenues (total HCBS is $2.2 billion) over the next five years. Our internal management controls and work in maximization of federal revenues resulted in a reduced net state cost of 6% while increasing the numbers of persons served by 15%. We have superb relationships with both the HCFA Central Office and our HCFA Regional Office and hold the record for the fastest HCFA approval of a Waiver amendment; in the middle of the summer with many staff on vacation, HCFA's Central Office worked with us to achieve approval of an amendment within a week of submission. The approval enabled us to collect additional revenues for FY 1995.
Certification of the Developmental Centers. In November, 1991, exactly one month after Cerreto joined the Department as Assistant Commissioner for Facilities Management, one of our Developmental Centers was put on decertification track by the Health Care Financing Administration. With her management and oversight, the Developmental Center retained certification upon survey exactly 60 days later and has achieved 98% to 100% active treatment ratings since then, sometimes with no cited deficiencies. During our administration, the seven Developmental Centers achieved between 96% and 100% Active Treatment ratings.
As Chief Executive Officer of The Accreditation Council (1985-88), Cerreto edited the 1987 Edition of the Council's Standards, which formed the base of the ICF/MR regulations issued by HCFA in 1988. She has provided training to the state surveyors in Illinois, New York and Florida and the federal surveyors in the Eastern and Midwest federal regions.
State-Operated Community Services. Campbell negotiated extremely innovative Union agreements that kept the focus on the person moving from a Developmental Center to a community home. The Department and the Unions agreed on the "Social Unit" concept, an agreement that was reported in Business Week for its innovation. The Social Unit provided that a staff who was chosen by an individual as part of his or her "social unit" would be permitted to move to the community with that individual and that the Social Unit would supercede Union seniority in choice of community jobs. The Department changed state regulations to permit long-term leases of homes operated by state employees in ways that ensured that staffing could be changed while the individual remained in the same home. Job descriptions were dramatically revised to reflect responsibilities in the community context.
Contrary to standard beliefs about the quality of services and supports provided by state employees who move from the Developmental Center setting to the community, the Massachusetts state-operated services (primarily home supports) have all achieved certification through the Department's Quality Enhancement System, participated eagerly in community trainings, and enjoy the greater flexibility afforded in small community homes. Although the Department initially developed these homes as community ICFs/MR, on June 30, 1993, we converted all our community ICFs/MR to the Home and Community Based Services Waiver with support from the provider community. The HCBS allows for the purchase of the same level of services as the ICF/MR model but does so more flexibly and without the onerous and expensive ICF/MR regulations. The conversion resulted in an immediate release of 10% of the funding, which was routed into individual supports, and an independent assessment of significantly greater satisfaction by individuals, parents and staff.
Monitoring and Oversight Systems. In 1993, Campbell and Cerreto restructured all quality assurance, monitoring and oversight mechanisms in the Department to eliminate duplication and unnecessary paperwork, assure timely response to issues, include individuals and families in all aspects of the development and implementation of the new system, and focus on consumer-centered outcomes that individuals told us were important to them: rights and dignity; individual choice and control; community membership; relationships; personal goals and achievements; and health, safety and economic security. The processes of Licensing, Human Rights, Quality Assurance and Family/Citizen Monitoring were combined into one comprehensive Quality Enhancement System designed to reward agencies whose services positively impacted the quality of life of individuals supported by them, provide technical assistance to agencies that needed additional supports to assure quality outcomes to the individuals they supported, and curtail the operations of agencies that could not assist individuals to achieve actual, relevant outcomes. The HCFA Regional Office requested the participation of Dr. Cerreto on two New England committees that it formed to (1) develop methods to assist agencies receiving HCBS waiver funds to assess the quality of their services and (2) develop a New England-specific HCBS Compliance Review Guide. The DMR Quality Assurance outcomes and principles were adopted by HCFA as the basis of its review of quality monitoring mechanisms for the New England States and by the states of Maryland, Connecticut and Iowa. Through the technology initiatives implemented by Campbell, the entire quality assurance system (forms, scoring, statistical analyses) is computerized in Microsoft Access.
Department Restructuring and Regulation Revision. During our Administration, we restructured the Department and regulatory framework to more effectively and efficiently provide needed and desired supports in today's human service delivery environment. All 10 chapters of the DMR regulations were rewritten, primarily by Cerreto, the Assistant to the Commissioner, and the Chief Counsel, to reflect an outcome approach, greater provider flexibility, and strong standard performance criteria.
Integration of Community and Developmental Center Systems. During the initial two years of our Administration, Campbell and the Regional and Developmental Center Directors integrated the bifurcated system, with one track for the community and one track for the Developmental Centers, into an Operational unit through which both the Area Offices and the Developmental Centers were part of the community system operating up to Central Office through the Regional Offices. The state-operated homes function like a provider within each Regional Office and the Developmental Center is considered the largest residential provider in the Region.
Rate Reform. During our administration, all contracts were analyzed thoroughly and the system simplified to assure accountability while giving increased flexibility to providers. New computer applications were implemented and contract codes collapsed so that individuals could flexibly change services and supports within agencies without contract revision.
Training and Increased Compensation for Direct Support Staff. Both Campbell and Cerreto strongly support the training, professionalization and adequate compensation of those staff who work directly with individuals with disabilities and have such impact on their lives. In 1995 Campbell negotiated with the Office of the Governor and the Legislature for what is now the fourth year of salary increases for staff initially making under $20,000 and now expanded to include those staff making between $20,000 and $30,000 annually. This legislated "salary reserve" totaled $12-$18 million per year. Campbell thought that Legislators would be more responsive to the needs of the Department if they knew more about the impact of disabilities in the cities and towns they represented. He instituted what is now known as the "Zip Code Project." Each Legislator received a letter describing the numbers of persons with disabilities living in the towns and cities he or she represented, the numbers of staff employed to support them, the amounts of money spent in their areas on services, salaries and goods, the types of supports and services provided, and the numbers of persons in their areas who were underserved or unserved. We think that "bringing people home" to the Legislators gave them a more realistic understanding of the Governor's Budget requests and the needs of their direct constituencies.
Three other major Department initiatives developed and implemented by Campbell contributed to the assurance of a pool of qualified staff, including staff from minority cultural and linguistic backgrounds: (1) Department participation in the ILEX program that brought Scandinavian pedagogues to our provider agencies for one to two year stays for the exchange of information and techniques; (2) the initial $100,000 funding of a University of Massachusetts/DMR Collaborative to fund experiential courses in disabilities at the four UMASS campuses; and (3) the $500,000 funding of the Urban Youth Collaborative Program, which provided minority high school and college students in 10 Massachusetts cities the opportunities to train and work in all facets of provider agencies during the summer and during their school year. The Urban Youth Collaborative Program achieved recognition for its innovations from the Ford Foundation.
User-Friendly and Responsive Technology. As Commissioner, Campbell undertook one of the largest technology projects in the country in the development and implementation of the "electronic ISP" (Individual Support Planning) Process. All ISP forms and an ISP "Help Desk" are on the Department server (in Lotus Notes) and are accessed by the Department's five Regional Offices and 25 Area Offices. The ISPs are developed in a person-centered planning format that incorporates all requirements for the Home and Community Based Services Waiver and all approvals can be obtained electronically by sending the Plan through the system. Data can be pulled from the electronic ISPs for HCBS monitoring, assurances and billing.
Self-Determination of Individuals with Disabilities. Cerreto wrote the successful Massachusetts Self-Determination Project proposal that was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and matched by the Health Care Financing Administration. She currently consults with the states of Maryland and Pennsylvania on the implementation of their Self-Determination Initiatives. Through Campbell's leadership, the Department already had a strong track record in the development and implementation of ways to promote the ability and opportunities for people with disabilities to speak up and make choices for themselves. We implemented the Consumer-Directed RFR (Request for Responses) in which individuals and/or their families, with capitated funding, described the services and supports that they needed and desired; with the help of the Department, mailed the description to providers; reviewed the responses; interviewed and site-visited potential providers of services; and chose the provider they desired. With assistance from local banks, the Department initiated a Vision of Home and Home Life through which people with disabilities were assisted to purchase or lease their own homes. Individual Supports enable people to purchase generic support services that meet their needs and increase their inclusion into their communities. Moneys that were once allocated to specialized disability sports programs were allocated to the Regions to fund supports in typical town or city sports activities so that people with disabilities could be included. During our Administration, the Department funded Parent and Family Leadership Institutes to assist young families to become advocates and to more effectively plan for their children's futures. We also hired the first Self-Advocate to assist in the teaching of other individuals with disabilities about self-advocacy, the legislative process, employment and rights.
Summary. In summary, we are enthused about the direction in which California is already moving and have the experience to assist the state to work through a process toward rapid outcomes that are right for California's citizens with developmental disabilities and for its system. We are untiring workers energized by the current challenges that the California DDS presents. We have been a strong team for nearly nine years now in a variety of endeavors and know how to complement each other's skills, interests and experience. We would be honored to become members of Governor Gray Davis' team in supporting his initiatives and bringing the California Developmental Disabilities Services system into national leadership for the 21st century.
Thank you for your consideration.