BALTIMORE (Map, News) - State assistance to Maryland’s 95,000 developmentally disabled residents may lag that of almost every other state, but Laura Howell hopes the situation will soon improve.

“This past year’s General Assembly passed a bill to study the rate system for [funding] developmental disability assistance,” said Howell, the executive director of the Maryland Association of Community Services. “The issue of looking how services are funded and how we can strengthen and improve the funding system for those services ... is really what we’re focused on.”

The Columbia-based $467,000-a-year nonprofit provides training, conference organizing, networking and advocacy services to more than 100 dues-paying provider organizations.

Maryland ranks 44th in the nation in state assistance to the developmentally disabled as a percentage of state wealth, according to a University of Colorado study.

Howell and the association might be able to change that situation, said Brian Cox, executive director of the Baltimore-based Development Disabilities Council and Howell’s associate on the Developmental Disabilities Coalition. “[The association] brings a lot of experience working with the legislature and the provider system. They’ve been a valuable player in improving the system.”

There is a long way to go.

About 20,000 affected Marylanders receive some state-funded help — including those with Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, mental retardation and cognitive impairment. At least 16,000 others are on waiting lists.

“I think that while the state has put in significant funding from time to time to help take folks off the waiting list or to raise wages for direct support staff, ultimately we just have a long way to go to get where we need to be,” Howell said, adding that the underfunding spans several administrations and is not just a result of the estimated $1.5 billion budget deficit.

Howell nevertheless is inspired by the help her member organizations are able to provide. Services include community-based residential, day, employment, respite and family support help to the developmentally disabled.

“For so long, people with disabilities were served in institutional settings,” she said. “The whole way that we think about people with developmental disabilities working in the community ... really has shifted. My member agencies really work with people so that they can live as full a life as possible in the community.”

More information

» Maryland Association of Community Services

10632 Little Patuxent Parkway, Columbia

410-740-5125

macsonline.org