Last week, the Senate Finance Committee took up Senate Bill 441. This legislation would cut a major source of funding for direct disability programming through the Coalition by 66% and is being pushed by TNCO.

The Committee had a full agenda that day and could only devote the final 15 minutes to the legislation and spent most of that time hearing testimony and asking questions of DMRS Deputy Commissioner Steve Norris. As a result, no vote was taken and the Committee will consider the legislation again on April 17th; however there were a number of interesting exchanges.

What we learned

  • Senator Douglas Henry (Nashville) asked Commissioner Norris if he was aware that the TN Conference on Social Welfare was opposing the legislation.
  • The bulk of the questions came from Senator Bo Watson (Chattanooga) and Senator Mark Norris (Memphis) who really tried to get to the bottom of things. In particular, Watson wanted to find out if TNCO was really going to use the money for direct, hands-on support of families and children or if the funding might provide services for 2,500 children — purposes that had been suggested at one time.
  • Commissioner Norris revealed that funds cut from existing Coalition disability programming and given to TNCO were not planned to be used for direct services to families and children impacted by a disability as had been suggested. Instead the funding is intended to be used for staff training, perhaps online computer training. This didn’t go over particularly well with Committee members — taking money away from traditional disability charitable purposes to provide staff training.
  • In addition, Norris revealed that he didn’t really understand the relationships between CMRA, TNCO, and TNCO ACTS.

Pandora’s Box Opened

Senator Jim Kyle (Memphis) made a suggestion that has sparked concern inside and outside the disability community. He suggested – but did not necessarily push – the idea that the state should end the allocation of funds to specific groups and put the funding into the state’s General Fund.

This is a no-win proposition for the disability community and others. If this happens the Coalition and the disability community would lose 100% of the funding from state fees, not 66%. In addition, the Boys and Girls Club of TN, CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates for children), domestic violence programs and others would also lose all their funding from the state fees. In other words, TNCO’s legislation has opened a Pandora’s Box that could cost many good organizations a vital source of funding.

What’s Next

The Senate Finance Committee will take up SB 441 again on April 17th. At that time, we anticipate that the Coalition will be given an opportunity to testify and answer questions from Senators. On the House side, things appear to be in a holding pattern.

A Lingering Question

We have received a number of questions from people who want to know, “What is TNCO?” The fairest way to answer this question would seem to be a reference to the state website which reads: “TNCO is a statewide, nonprofit trade association providing membership services to more than 80 service providers … TNCO ACTs, which provides education and training opportunities to provider agency staff members from executive directors to front-line employees. To read the full description visit: http://www.tennessee.gov/dmrs/alphabet_soup.html


Clearing the Air

The Coalition is naturally concerned about the purposeful filing of this legislation to cut funding that supports existing programs and member organizations. The Coalition would naturally prefer organizations seek out new funding sources rather than cannibalize existing sources of scarce funding for cross-disability programming.

Nevertheless, the Coalition recognizes there are many good people and groups who belong to TNCO and provide valuable services. We know this because some of these groups also belong to the Coalition and we work well together. The Coalition believes that the current efforts to cut its funding probably do not reflect the views of all, perhaps not even most, TNCO members.

How You Can Help

If you want to help preserve funding for not only Coalition programming, but also the programming for groups such as CASA and the Boys and Girls Club, then please drop a line to either Courtney_j@tndisability.org or todd_h@tndisability.org