Direct Care Pay

There's an article in the Courier News of Central Jersey from an executive director of The Union Arc (I'd link to it if I could). The current governor (Chuck Charles) is trying to limit executive pay of agencies that contract with the department of human services. A good idea certainly in response to the compensation of one particularly spectacular executive director. I don't know what other executive director make more than ours I'm sure but ours is no where close to what the limits are (and sometimes I think you get what you pay for but I'm just being mean now.) The Union Arc executive he rightly goes on to point out that agencies have a brain drain to the Division of Developmental Disabilities because the compensation is better there (not really a great place to work though.) He also rightly points out that direct care workers have not had a raise in a number of years now and most make around $10/hr or so which in New Jersey is chicken feed. Frankly, I don't know how people make it, although at least in our agency some people do do a lot of overtime which helps out (some agencies control their budgets by limiting OT we are not one of them.) Of course here's the rub the state doesn't value direct care and neither do their agencies. I will bet in the Union Arc the people furthest from direct care make the most money. I will bet those same people never take the training for working with folks because direct care again is not respected. It's assumed that anyone can do it with little training or experience, and while I often think too much is made of the need for training (after its just people talking to other people) there are exercises which help people think through situations that will arise. And they will arise, so sometimes its nice to have a little training or a lot. Somebody said that look a budget and you can see where people values lie too bad agencies aren't transparent about how the money is spent.