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Show USTSto-seek increase in staff State legislators will be asked during their special session this week to fund a portion of the money needed to provide 29 additional direct care staff for the Utah State Training School. Meeting with the Division of Services to the Handicapped Board at the training school last week, Training School Superintendent Jeremiah Dandoy said the additional ad-ditional staff is needed in order to meet staffing requirements set up by federal Medicaid regulations. Legislators will be asked to fund $130,500 of the $435,000 salary package, he said. Governor Norman H. Bangerter has indicated he will probably place the request on the agenda of the legislative special session. Dandoy says just nine of the 29 positions would actually be new as 20 were funded temporarily through June 30 with turnover money from the present budget. If approved, the nine additional employees would bring the number of direct care staff at the school to 431. Medicaid requires a l-to-8 staff to patient ratio during morning and afternoon shift and a l-to-16 ratio during the night shift, Dandoy said. The superintendent says he doesn't believe those ratios are satisfactory because the l-to-8 staff ratio doesn't always provide needed supervision. He cited bath time as an example, saying he saw a developmentalist assisting one man in the bathtub, dressing one who had just gotten out of the tub, and undressing another who would take the next bath. He still had five men in another room who were unsupervised, Dandoy said, adding, "Then you wonder why someone is occasionally hurt." A recent report on training school conditions indicated that 80 additional ad-ditional developmentalists (direct care staff) were needed. Thirty-five of these had been provided by converting administrative and support positions to direct care. This left the shortage at 45. Plans to move 64 residents into community settings by Oct. 1 reduce the shortage by 16. Dandoy said by adding the 29 positions, the school can, with a little luck, maintain the Medicaid standard. stan-dard. The new positions are necessary, it was noted, despite plans to begin implementing recommendations of a study at the school which calls for gradually phasing out the institution in favor of community residential settings. A memo to board members said "It is imperative that residents at the Utah State Training School receive optimal training in the skills necessary for their transition to community facility," continuing that the transition to "more appropriate ap-propriate community facilities" will take several years to achieve. |