Funds available for compliance with new Federal HCBS requirements

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The Department of Developmental Services (DDS) recently announced that regional center service providers may be eligible to receive funding to assist their programs to come into compliance with the new federal Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) waiver regulations. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have recognized that in order to fully comply with the new settings rules, some programs may need to modify their existing programs, which may have a significant impact on their budget. Therefore, funding has been set aside solely for this purpose. The 2016 Budget Act (SB26, Chapter 23, Statutes of 2016) has allocated $15 million to fund changes that are necessary in order to bring programs into compliance. You may apply for these funds through the regional centers. We highly encourage you to take advantage of this funding as it will have a great impact on the service delivery of your programs. Please see a summary of each step outlined below and refer to the attachments for details on each process.  Assistance will be available to help in filling out the required forms on 9/19/2016 at ACRC at 9:30am if needed,

  1. Proposals need to be submitted to ACRC by October 1, 2016 (Enclosures B & C);
  2. Received proposals will be submitted to DDS by November 30, 2016 or as ACRC receives them. ACRC may provide feedback as necessary prior to submitting to DDS;
  3. DDS will notify ACRC of programs selected for the funding by February 2017;
  4. Providers that have been selected will complete additional steps prior to receiving the final funding by April 30, 2017, providers must submit to ACRC:
  1. An executed service agreement/contract between ACRC and the service provider;
  2. For projects involving the purchase of equipment or the modification of a structure, three quotes for the proposed service;
  3. A budget for the project identifying each cost with a brief description;
  4. A project timeline identifying key milestones.

Should you have any questions please contact the Community Services department at ACRC.