Thank you for signing the petition for full funding for I/DD services.

Please share the link to the petition with your family and friends and any Direct Support Professionals (DSPs) you might know, with a request to sign it.

A new rate study in Illinois recommended raising the average pay for direct support professionals to $22.50 “in order for providers to remain competitive in hiring and retaining core direct care staff” and to “maintain their value within the broader labor market.” The situation in Delaware is no different.

Two years ago, a similar study looked at 2018 wage data for Delaware's DSPs and recommended that the wages for DSPs be benchmarked at about $5/hour above the state’s minimum wage of $9.50/hour, which went into effect in 2019.

Current state reimbursement rates in Delaware only pay approximately $9.62 an hour to providers for the work done by most DSPs. To pay more, provider organizations must either fund raise, which very few residential providers can do, or they must take fiscal resources away from other parts of the rate system (such as program supervision, staff training, or clinical services), which are needed to comply with state and federal regulatory requirements.