Cowboy State Daily Interview
- jstong2
- Dec 19
- 3 min read
Jake Nichols interviewed CES CEO Shawn Griffin on today's podcast
It's important to know that some 3500 Wyoming residents ages 18 to 100 are classified as having severe intellectual and developmental disabilities or acquired brain injuries from accidents that severely impact their health and independence.
Of these fellow citizens, some 150 are cared for directly by Community Entry Services across three cities in two counties of Wyoming (Teton and Fremont).
The people who directly care for these folk are "Direct Service Professionals" whose work involves extensive training, and some pretty intense level of care above anything usually found in nursing homes or shelters. But the legislature's choice to not fully reimburse their work, at the rate which the State's own 3rd party studies verifies to be the proper level, means that all these programs are essentially forced to make up the difference through private fundraising or face collapse.
And collapse is not an option because programs like CES ARE the safety net!
Without healthy private programs hundreds or thousands of disabled WY citizens would need to be cared for by the already overburdened State facilities where a single bed costs nearly 10 times what it would cost in the private sector.
CES holds private fundraising events annually in Jackson, Riverton and Lander to offset the lack of State funding. Thanks to the generosity of hundreds of individuals and businesses we're able to continue caring for our 150+ clients across the State.
So from a purely fiscal perspective (to say nothing of the ethics and morality), choosing not to reimburse these private programs serving Wyoming's citizens with disabilities means we're being "penny wise, pound foolish": attempting to 'save' money that runs the risk of undermining the most economical way of caring for our people.
Shawn has been serving the needs of this vulnerable population through CES for over 30 years and all this time, there has only been a single fiscal session where the State of Wyoming has fully funded the state-wide network of nonprofits and other private programs caring for these vulnerable WY citizens and that was largely due to the leadership of Eli Bebout, who was then State Senator for Fremont County.
It should not take extraordinary political capital to convince the State Legislature that if government has any moral authority at all, it's to support those who can't otherwise support themselves, whether they be orphaned children or severely disabled adults.
Nor should it be a partisan issue since the people of Wyoming overwhelmingly subscribe to the "code of the West" among whose values surely is that we don't leave anyone behind.
Our pioneering ancestors would walk beside the wagons to make space for those who couldn't walk through no fault of their own. We are descended from those people and their conviction that here in Wyoming, we care for those who can't care for themselves.
Fortunately the Joint Appropriations Committee, the Governor, and the Department of Health all seem to appreciate the gravity of the situation, and acknowledge that reimbursing only 81 cents on the dollar isn't sustainable.
In this Christmas season, please consider encouraging your state Representative and Senator to remember these 3500 WY citizens, our neighbors, relatives and friends, who need the services provided by private programs and non-profits like CES to not just survive but flourish.
To find your particular WY State Representative or Senator see here:
To support our work go to https://www.ces-usa.org/donate or sign up as a sponsor at https://www.ces-usa.org/dancingwiththestars
For more information on making a donation or sponsorship call Joe Stong at 912-547-5189 (cell) or contact him at Jstong@ces-usa.org
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