Officials: Caregivers for intellectual, developmental disability centers need raise

Donna Cox, right, receives assistance from Deloras Hudgins Friday during a eye/hand coordination exercise Friday morning at at Orange Grove. The "facility based" day program is called Adult Comprehensive Training. Donna Cox, right, receives assistance from Deloras Hudgins Friday during a eye/hand coordination exercise Friday morning at at Orange Grove. The "facility based" day program is called Adult Comprehensive Training.

By Steve Johnson March 15, 2016 3 min read

Tennessee’s nonprofit intellectual and developmental disability centers are asking state lawmakers for a $21 million boost in funding to help them retain staffers who they say provide vital care but earn less than workers at Wal-Mart or fast-food restaurants.

Some 8,000 patients statewide with intellectual or developmental disabilities are housed in local residential centers ranging in size from four to eight beds. Each of those facilities needs at least one staffer on duty at all times, and some need additional staffing, depending on the medical needs of the patients, according to Kyle Hauth, executive director of the Orange Grove Center in Chattanooga.

The Orange Grove Center

Orange Grove Center executive director Kyle Hauth

In a meeting with the Times-Free Press last week, Hauth argued that pay levels at private nonprofit centers such as Orange Grove have barely increased by about 1.9 percent over the past 10 years, while workers at comparable state-run facilities have gotten raises of about 16 percent.

Pay at private facilities now ranges from the minimum wage up to about $10 an hour, Hauth said.

“That is lower than Wal-Mart or Amazon,” he said.