As Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is considered for the position of Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Obama administration, an AP story that appeared in The Kansas City Star on Feb. 11 (“Invisible Kansans”) highlights the predicament of the nearly 4,000 Kansas residents who suffer from developmental disabilities and fear the state’s current budget troubles will result in a failure of services.

These residents and their supporters have mounted a campaign, complete with a website, to increase their visibility in the eyes of state residents and lawmakers. Their primary goal, as stated in the AP story, is to “reduce the waiting lists [of those waiting for care] and increase the salaries” of the direct-care workers who care for them.

A Budget in Crisis

Kansas’ budget crisis has been widely talked about in the national news media in recent weeks. As the Star reported (“Kansas budget battle a lengthy journey, a twisted pathway“) on Feb. 21 in colorful language, the state “joined California as the poster child for budgetary bedlam [in mid-Feb.] as Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and Republican legislative leaders wrangled over the state’s fiscal crisis.” The problem actually began months ago and then simmered until it finally “boiled over. . . when paychecks to state workers, tax refunds and other state obligations got caught in the middle.”

A potentially devastating crisis was averted when the state’s Republican lawmakers agreed to cover tax refunds and state paychecks by borrowing $225 million from various state accounts, while in return Gov. Sebelius agreed to approve about $300 million in budget cuts for the 2009 fiscal year.

Invisible Residents

But this may not be enough for the state’s “invisible” residents, those developmentally disabled individuals who fear they may be overlooked in the budget furor.  In the words of advocates and family members, these individuals “wait for services they need to live more productive lives [and] are often forgotten during battles over the state budget.” They include “children who need special therapies, mentally disabled older adults who can no longer live in their homes and parents of disabled children who simply need a few hours out of the house.”

These Kansans and their supporters are now employing not only traditional media such as television, newspapers and billboards but also social media websites such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube to publicize the plight of both the disabled and their caregivers. They are also hopeful that a bill making its way through the state Legislature — HB 2094, known as “The Invisible Kansans Bill” — will deliver positive results.

The Star story describes the situations of three of these caregivers — including a married couple who in addition to working professionally in the field have a developmentally disabled 5-year-old son of their own — and then concludes by quoting state Rep. Jason Watkins (R-Wichita), who says, “We have to go back to the fundamental philosophy of what our government’s priorities should be. We might have to make a choice to drop an economic development area, or maybe even a wildlife and parks area, before we cut money for the physically or developmentally disabled. . . . We would argue the No. 1 priority for government is to take care of the vulnerable.”