HR0272 100TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR0272 LRB100 12077 MST 24297 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, Direct support professionals are the primary providers of publicly-funded long-term support and services for individuals with intellectual/developmental disabilities; and

WHEREAS, The Congressional Budget Office has found that the demand for direct support professionals will grow rapidly in the coming decade; and

WHEREAS, In recent years, community-based providers serving children and adults with intellectual/developmental disabilities have expressed growing concerns about the inability to recruit and retain direct support professionals despite increasing demand for services; and

WHEREAS, Governor Bruce Rauner, through a proclamation issued on August 24, 2016, acknowledged that there is a documented critical and growing shortage of direct support professionals throughout the United States; and

WHEREAS, The United States Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is the principal federal agency for measuring labor market activity, working conditions, and price changes in the economy; and

WHEREAS, Policymakers at the federal and State levels make frequent use of BLS data and analytics to identify trends in employment, productivity, price indexes, and compensation; and

WHEREAS, The BLS recently looked at the data it collects for wages, total compensation, and job openings for two direct care occupations: home health aides and personal care aides; this look was organized to better understand wages, total compensation, and job openings for these direct care positions as posited against eight alternative occupations with similar educational level requirements and short-term training requirements; and

WHEREAS, While there is a standard occupational classification for both home health aides and personal care aides, there is not separate standard occupational classification for direct support professionals; and

WHEREAS, As there is overlap with respect to educational and training requirements among home health aides, personal care aides, and direct support professionals, there are clear differences in occupation responsibilities, modalities of employment, and populations served and supported; and

WHEREAS, Factoring direct support professionals in with home health aides and personal care aides does not provide policymakers at both the federal and State levels with accurate data on the key indicators for direct support professionals of wages, total compensation, job openings, and turnover; and

WHEREAS, In August of 2016, a United States Government Accountability Office Report on the Long-Term Care Workforce to the Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Health Care, Benefits, and Administrative Rules, Committee on Government Oversight and Government Reform indicated there are gaps in existing federal data that make it difficult to know what the current workforce numbers are and to predict future trends regarding supply and demand; and

WHEREAS, In the report, it was specifically noted that "According to BLS officials, due to the National Compensation Survey's small sample size, benefits data are limited to direct care workers in all industries and cannot be broken down by occupation or specific industry"; and

WHEREAS, In the same report, it was noted that "Unless the Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA) takes actions to overcome data limitations in order to make projections of supply and demand, the ability of policymakers and other stakeholders to develop appropriate workforce strategies to ensure a sufficient number of qualified direct care workers will continue to be hampered"; and

WHEREAS, The need to capture accurate data at the federal level to ensure government has the information it needs to build the direct support professional workforce is at its highest need; and

WHEREAS, By designating the Direct Support Professional as its own standard occupational classification, the BLS will be in a position to capture much more precise and accurate data specific to the profession; this in turn will assist federal and State policymakers to inform the public of the current status of the workforce, impact policymaking on direct support professional issues, which will include potential changes by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and other federal agencies as they recognize the need for focus on this workforce, and potentially impact federal resources legislated by the United States Congress for direct support professional initiatives, and potentially increasing the amount of people employed in the State; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE HUNDREDTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we urge the United States Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics to designate the Direct Support Professional as its own standard occupational classification so that more accurate and precise data on this workforce can be captured and analyzed on an ongoing basis; and be it further

RESOLVED, That suitable copies of this resolution be delivered to the Secretary of the United States Department of Labor.