As your constituent, I'm asking you to fix Michigan's direct care worker (DCW) wage problem in the FY27 budget. The state has already promised these wages, but in many cases they’re not being distributed. The end result? Providers, people with disabilities and their families are paying the price.
Four things I'm asking you to do in FY27:
- Reflect the true cost of the $3.40/hour passthrough.
The FY27 budget should account for the full ongoing cost of cumulative wage commitments made to date, ensuring full finding for the $3.40/hour pass through - not just a partial backfill of expired ARPA funds. The gap must be addressed.
The Legislature should direct a sufficient appropriation to cover the cost of the $1.25/hour FY26 wage increase for behavioral health and aging services that providers are currently absorbing without appropriate compensation. The result is that providers are incurring huge losses, endangering the stability of the provider network.
- Fund the FY27 minimum wage increase.
Provide funds necessary to cover the $1.27/hour increase in the State Minimum Wage that will take effect January 1, 2027, which will impact employers of all DCWs, so the mandate does not arrive without the means to meet it. Without additional funding to cover these costs, the provider network will crumble, and individuals with disabilities and their families across the state will lose access to care.
- Require budget passthrough to actually pass through.
Include explicit boilerplate language requiring state, regional and county agencies within the Behavioral Health system to distribute DCW wage funding to providers and families within a defined timeframe, with accountability and clear reporting requirements for compliance. That reporting should include information on any barriers encountered in the distribution of these dollars. Right now, while some Community Mental Health Services Programs have distributed the DCW wage dollars to their provider organizations, some, due to insufficient revenues, have not. This isn't a policy expansion. It's the responsible completion of commitments Michigan has already made – commitments that are not currently being met.
