The actions of the Josephine County government, it turns out, have determined the future of developmental disabilities services in Coos County.

In a town hall-style meeting Friday at the Oregon Department of Human Services' offices in North Bend, Mary Lee Fay, DHS' manager of the Developmental Disabilities programs, announced that the county's DD services contract has been awarded to Alternative Services Inc., a Michigan-based agency. The action was taken without allowing local agencies to make bids. This was done, Fay explained, to entice the corporation into handling DD services in Josephine County.

“Change is hard, and a change when people don't have any choice about it is even harder,” said Fay to the roughly 40 people in attendance.

Typically a request for proposal is issued when a contract is up for bid, to allow other agencies a chance to compete for it. Coos County's contract was offered to ASI without following this procedure, Fay said, because Josephine County had decided that “they weren't going to run (DD) services anymore. They gave us 90 days to find an agency that would.”

ASI was approached for the job, she said, and wasn't interested in managing Josephine County because of its small size. Fay said the Coos County contract, which the state has managed for the past four years, was offered to convince ASI to take over management of Josephine County's DD services. Because Josephine County required a new service provider by the beginning of July, she said, there was no time for a request for proposal for Coos County's contract.

According to Karen Snyder, program manager for Seniors with Disabilities/Developmental Disabilities in Coos County, ASI will coordinate the DD case management services and clerical support currently coordinated by DHS. There are currently seven people employed by DHS to provide assistance to the the county's 311 DD clients, Snyder said. Their job includes meeting with families to determine what services are needed, and providing information, resources, and referrals for care. All current employees will be offered an opportunity to work with ASI, she said, and while “their benefits will definitely be reduced” under the new company, “their salaries ... will be competitive.”

Since 2002, DHS has managed Coos County's developmental disabilities program because the county, like Josephine, transferred responsibility for it over to the state. Fay said the state had no business running such a program, and that Coos County's actions were “highly unusual. We'd never had a county do that before. Typically, states can only deliver those services in emergencies. To tell you the truth, running the program has been on the backburner for us since then. ASI will actually be able to focus on it.”

Gerald Miller, executive director of local DD service provider Star of Hope, said he wished “there had been a chance to keep services local,” citing the fact that ASI's board of directors is located in Michigan. Fay said she regretted that “you are part of another county's crisis.” She added that before going to ASI, the DHS approached both Jefferson Behavioral Health and Lutheran Community Services, both of which indicated that they were not able to take on the program.

Miller then asked whether there'd be “something put in place that made sure (DD) workers are still paid well enough when ASI moves in.” Fay responded that she was “hoping to put together a policy package that might address that issue.”

ASI was offered the Coos County contract, Fay said, despite the fact that the corporation has a reputation in Coos County.

According to Ginger Swan, head of Coos County Mental Health, ASI operated two homes for the developmentally disabled here about a decade ago, but the county canceled the company's contract. At that time, management of the two homes was turned over to the local nonprofit Coos-Curry Transitional House and Star of Hope. Swan said she was unable to reveal the issues that led to the cancelling of ASI's contract because she was out of town, and that she'd “look into those records when I get back into town ... though (the records) may have been shredded by now. We sometimes shred documents that are older than 7 years old.”

Fay admitted that when ASI was in Coos County “they didn't run services well.” In their defense, she added that “they've done an amazing job of improving in the 10 years since then,” and pointed out that ASI also had regional offices in Linn, Jackson, Grant, Lane, Multnomah and Clackamas counties.

Tom Giles, of North Bend, an advocate for those with disabilities, asked Fay to state “in strong terms” that she supported the formation of a developmental disabilities advisory committee in Coos County to ensure that ASI was doing its job properly. Fay responded that she “absolutely supports” that notion, and that the state will be doing “regular field reviews” of ASI's performance.

According to Fay, a request for proposal will be issued in two years, allowing others to bid for the county's developmental disabilities contract. In August, she said, Pat Allen-Sleeman, ASI's Oregon executive director, will visit Coos County to hold a public meeting “as part of the transition process.”