Caregivers supported by those they serve
AUGUSTA — Mary Ellen Sawyer, a quadriplegic with cerebral palsy, told state lawmakers Tuesday 12th Jan that state budget cuts will mean a pay reduction for the personal care attendants who help her. She thinks that's unfair.
Sawyer, who was the Maine Easter Seals poster child in 1955, worked for 20 years as a health professional. Her medical conditions worsened seven years ago and she now needs five to eight attendants to help her four times a day.
Proposed cuts in the state budget would mean a pay reduction for those attendants from $9 an hour to $8.10 an hour.
"Reducing attendant salaries to $8.10 is not a livable wage for anyone," she told members of the Legislature's Appropriations Committee. "Reduced wages will make it very difficult for me to retain the personal attendants I have or hire new ones."
Sawyer, of Auburn, was one of dozens of people, many of whom use wheelchairs, to testify at a public hearing on proposed cuts to the state Department of Health and Human Services.
Gov. John Baldacci proposed the cuts as one way to make up for a $438 million state budget shortfall. Among the cuts are $937,500 in the long-term care homemaker program, $225,000 in home-based care for adults, $1.8 million in the Drugs for the Elderly Program and about $1 million in adult day services for the elderly. The proposed cuts wouldn't just affect senior citizens.
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