BENTONVILLE -- A state agency is more than $152,000 behind in its payments to a group that provides help to people with mental disabilities in Northwest Arkansas, the group's director said Friday.
Keith Vire, director of Arkansas Support Network in Bentonville, said his organization has had to borrow nearly $100,000 from a bank to pay its 185-member staff. He's also driven to Little Rock to pick up payments rather than wait for them in the mail. The Bentonville-based organization, founded in 1988, provides help to people with cerebral palsy, mental retardation, autism and epilepsy in Washington, Benton, Carroll and Madison counties. The organization's staff travels to the homes of about 115 disabled clients. Some clients require constant care and help with bathing, dressing and eating. Others just need a ride to work.
The organization also provides up to $1,100 per year in cash to about 140 families caring for disabled children.
Most of the organization's funding is funneled through the Department of Human Services. A series of accounting glitches have delayed the agency's payments for months, Vire said. He calculated Friday morning that the agency owed his organization $210,662 for services from before July to November. Later Friday, he received about $58,000 in payments for November and December.
The organization has a budget of about $3.5 million, Vire said. Meanwhile, the organization keeps providing services for which it hasn't been paid, Vire said.
"We're dealing with people's lives here. We can't just say, 'If you don't pay us by Friday, these people are out on the street,' " he said.
Joe Quinn, spokesman for the Department of Human Services, said his agency has been in discussions with Arkansas Support Network for months over the accounting problems. He wasn't sure if the problems have affected the other 100 or so nonprofit organizations across the state his agency pays to help people with mental disabilities.
"We feel like some of the problems have been on their part, and some of the problems have been on our part," Quinn said. "There's been extensive discussions on this, but it's not a programmatic disagreement. There's no philosophical disagreement. It's a matter of how they bill us and how we pay the bills."
Vire said most of the problems stem from the agency's Developmental Disabilities Services payments. The payments reimburse Vire's staff for providing around-the-clock care to about 10 people who haven't been accepted by Medicaid. Clients are referred to Vire's group by Developmental Disabilities Services.
For years, Vire's group was paid for the services without any trouble. But in July, Developmental Disabilities shifted the billing for the program to Texas-based Electronic Data Systems, Vire said. Since October, the company has told Vire it can't pay him because it hasn't been authorized by Developmental Disabilities Services.
Staff at Developmental Disabilities Services have told Vire he is authorized, but they haven't been able to get that information to Electronic Data Systems, Vire said. Vire said he's worked "almost exclusively" on figuring out the accounting problems since late December.
"My theory is, if the state's going to contract with us to provide this service, really these things should be figured out on the front end," he said.
State Sen. John Brown, R-Siloam Springs, said he was contacted by Vire about two weeks ago and has talked to Human Services staff members, who assured him they're working on the problems.
"I don't think DHS is just intentionally sitting on the payments, and I don't think there's any question about the integrity of the organization," he said. "I think it's just the process of bureaucracy."

Arkansas Online

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