Byline: The Register-Guard

CORRECTION (ran 2/15/02): An editorial in the Feb. 8 Register-Guard misstated the average wages paid to direct-care workers who support the developmentally disabled. The statewide average is $9.30 an hour. The figure cited in the editorial is the average pay

When legislators assemble today for a special budget-balancing session, they'll debate programs and policies in the bloodless jargon of government. But legislators who were in Salem a week ago would have gained a glimpse of how their decisions affect Oregonians' lives, when people with developmental disabilities and the workers who provide their support rallied on the Capitol steps to protest the proposed cancellation of a pay increase.

About 5,000 Oregonians with developmental disabilities are assisted by 7,000 to 8,000 workers paid by the public. These "direct care" workers help Oregon's most profoundly disabled citizens - people with autism, cerebral palsy, mental retardation and other disabilities - conduct the business of ordinary life: eating, washing, dressing and, in many instances, holding a job. They are physical attendants, counselors and friends to their clients. They often must deal with medical problems and what people in social services call "challenging behavior."

For this, they're paid a starting wage of about $7 a hour. The average is just over $8 an hour.

The 2001 Legislature approved a cost-of-living pay increase for direct care workers. But a draft budget-balancing proposal prepared by legislative leaders would cancel the raise scheduled for the second year of the biennium, saving the state $4.6 million.

The cost to direct care workers would be about 25 cents per hour. The state would lose, too - if Oregon cuts direct-care spending by $4.6 million, it will forgo $5.3 million in federal matching funds that can be used for all Medicaid programs. The state would give up more than a dollar for each one it would save.

It costs about $2,000 to train a person as a direct care worker, and yearly turnover in many programs is more than 100 percent. Some people leave because the work is too physically or emotionally demanding. Most of them, however, quit because they can't make ends meet on $8 an hour, or because they find easier, better-paying work elsewhere. A raise, even what amounts to a token increase, would improve employee retention, thereby cutting training costs and improving the quality of care.

A pay raise may look like an easy target to legislators considering cuts that would result in school closures, or tax increases that might affect laid-off constituents. If the $4.6 million doesn't come from a cancellation of direct care workers' cost-of-living increase, it will have to come from somewhere else.

But it's not likely that many legislators would have been willing to appear at last week's rally to tell direct care workers that the state would be doing the right thing by reneging on its promise to raise their pay by 25 cents an hour. The faces of people who were counting on an extra $10 a week are among those that are behind the numbers that the Legislature will begin debating today.

Programs and budget numbers are abstractions, but their effects are real. As they begin their work, lawmakers must not forget that.