Thank you for using your voice to tell Maryland legislators to fairly fund community providers like Jubilee in Maryland’s upcoming state budget. You made a difference! We anticipate that the decisions made in March by the Maryland Senate Budget and Taxation Committee will likely move forward to legislation. Jubilee continues to work closely with our elected officials on these critical budget issues.

Details of what we know now are below. The good news:

• The General Assembly is restoring $23.1 million of the proposed cuts.
• The $500K budget caps have been removed. DDA will no longer pursue the waiver amendment process to implement the caps.
• The “Dedicated Hours” policy implementation is limited in a way that will protect all or nearly all of the dedicated hours funding Jubilee currently receives.
• The revised plan will reduce Jubilee’s overall budget by less than three percent.

The bad news:

• There are still $126.9 million cuts to general funds.
• For community providers like Jubilee, there is a two percent rate cut across all services.
• There will be an additional two percent rate cut for Personal Support services.
• There are substantial cuts to Self-Directed Services. This does not impact Jubilee directly, but it will cause significant and painful challenges for people with disabilities using this service model.

Jubilee will weather these challenges with the same grace and creativity that we have with past challenges. Thank you for your support and advocacy.