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Legislative Action Alert

2008 General Assembly Session

The 2008 Regular Session of the Virginia General Assembly convened on Wednesday, January 9, 2008. Session is scheduled to adjourn March 8, 2008. You can easily find and contact your delegate or senator, search bills and budget amendments, and much more under the “Quick Links” section at http://legis.state.va.us/. Some of the bills and budget ammendments of special interest to our families are:
  • 1450 new MR Waiver slots over the biennium (306#16s) & (306#8h)
  • 300 new DD Waiver slots over the biennium (306#9s) & (306#9h)
  • Services for 1,000 people who cannot access the MR Waiver (316#4s) & (316#4h)
  • DMHMRSAS study on housing for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (315#3s) & (315#3h)
  • 4.2% increase in MR and DD Waiver reimbursement rates to meet rising costs (306#4s) & (306#4h)
  • Realign Medicaid Waiver Supported Employment rate (306#18s) & (306#15h)
  • 10% increase for Medicaid Waiver personal care assistance and skilled nursing (306#12s) & (306#12h)
  • Additional Part C/Early Intervention services for infants & toddlers with disabilities (316#17s) & (316#14h)
  • 10% increase for consumer-directed personal care assistance services (306#17s) & (306#22h)
  • Requires the Secretary of Health and Human Resources to develop an implementation plan for serving individuals with autism spectrum disorders and report its findings to the Governor and Chairmen of House Appropriations and Senate Finance Committees by October 1, 2008 (282#2h) & (282#3s)
  • Directing the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission to study autism education and training available to law-enforcement and judicial personnel. (HJR 110)
Members of the chapter receive e-mail updates on bills in the General Assembly. It is important to contact your representatives at the GA to let them know how you feel about legislation affecting your family. They WANT to hear from their constituents.

October 2007 - Proposed Revisions to Virginia Special Education Regulations Published Advocates Consider Next Steps

The proposed revisions to the Regulations Governing Special Education Programs for Children with Disabilities in Virginia have been published with the announcement of the upcoming Virginia Board of Education meeting. The proposed revisions to the Regulations can be viewed at http://www.pen.k12.va.us/VDOE/VA_Board/Meetings/2007/sepitemA.pdf The VA Coalition for Students with Disabilities will meet in Richmond on Nov. 1 at 10 a.m. with staff from the Virginia Department of Education to discuss the proposed revisions to the Regulations Governing Special Education Programs for Children with Disabilities in Virginia. For more information about the November 1 meeting, please contact Cheryl Ward at 757-461-8007 or cward@endependence.org The Coalition is seeking students, parents and other advocates who are willing to work together to draft comment on the proposed revisions to the Regulations. If you are interested in assisting with this please contact Cheryl Ward, cward@endependence.org. A series of conference calls will be scheduled for the development of comments from the Coalition. The Coalition will begin a section by section review and discussion of the proposed revisions on River-VA starting next week. ( If you are interested in joining the River-VA list serve, contact cward@endependence.org.)

If you know of meetings that are open to advocates where the Regulations will be discussed, please share information about the meeting on River-VA so that others will have the opportunity to participate.

The Board of Education meets September 26 and is expected to authorize the Department of Education to move to the next regulatory step to begin the public comment period. Information about the public comment period such as timeframe and locations of the public hearings will be published in the near future.

The State Special Education Advisory Committee has the proposed revisions to the Regulations on their meeting agenda for October 25-26 when they meet in Lynchburg.

http://www.pen.k12.va.us/VDOE/Instruction/Sped/AgendaSSEAC10-07.pdf