Your Tax Dollars at Work

As Maggie’s favorite fictional character Junie B. Jones would say, “I have frustration in me”

Today was the annual meeting with the social worker from the Regional Center. This meeting always happens right around the birthday of the client, which for Maggie was two days ago. Hmmm. Maybe that is why her birthday is often so melancholy. I know what’s coming.
The Regional Center is a private agency that contracts with the State of California to provide state services to the developmentally disabled, like Maggie and thousands of other Californians. They are the gatekeeper of sorts when it comes to services. They can open that door and get what a client needs or stand there shooing folks away. There are many of them in various regions of California (hence the clever name). Ours is the Golden Gate Regional center, which is, by reputation, better than many.

California, like many places, is really screwed up financially. We may actually take the cake in that department; because, in addition to the financial crunch being felt across the country, California has an inept and ineffectual state government that spends more time deadlocked over issues than anything else. I think about five legislators are really running the entire state. And they are doing that with smoke and mirrors. Reimbursement for nursing is being cut 3%, which is tolerable, but there is an indication of more cuts to come, which is not.

The annual meeting is designed to determine what needs the client has and what will be done to meet those needs. The social workers are stretched beyond capacity and generally cut and paste reports from previous years to get the paperwork done and signed as quickly as possible. It doesn’t have to be right, just complete. They comply with the letter of the law, but no one -- and I mean NO ONE -- is paying attention to the spirit.

The documents were already filled in and I was just supposed to sign them indicating everything is peachy keen and working perfectly.

Except it is not.

And I didn’t.

The poor woman was somewhat flummoxed. She was very nice and understood my concern. She wanted me to sign it anyway and PROMISED to change it when she got back to the office.

Sorry. No can do.

She will email it to me for review before I sign. That is better. Nevertheless, the documentation itself is all so silly.

I feel strongly that documentation should be correct, especially as Maggie approaches adulthood. I understand the budget constraints. I understand that not everything will be fixed. Concerns should be documented even if they cannot be addressed by the system. Seems logical enough. Bzzzzzzzzzz, wrong. For example, there is a section called “unmet needs.” That would seem to be the perfect place to list needs a client has that are not being addressed. But no, that would be logical and therefore BZZZZZ.Wrong again. You just cannot do that.

You can only use the unmet needs section to address to needs that the state is already capable of addressing. If there are needs outside of the current array of services, they are not “needs” as defined by the state.

I’m sorry…what? That means there are no “needs” outside of the system. And we all know that the system is absolutely perfect and operates like a well-oiled machine.

Pssst…..your well-oiled machine is leaking. Sproinggggggg.