The board overseeing state-run programs for people with developmental disabilities in New York’s bucolic Hudson Valley is tasked with visiting and inspecting each of the roughly 130 facilities under its purview at least four times a year.
The only problem: The board has just a single member, and the law requires at least seven.
The board’s job is to inspect and evaluate supportive housing centers, group homes, and other programs, providing outside oversight. In the Hudson Valley, that all falls on Charles Scheinberg, a retired mental health clinic worker.
“I can’t really get the work done that needs to be done,” said Scheinberg, 75, who joined the board two years ago. He said he was only able to inspect a fraction of the facilities in his region last year.
Scheinberg is one of roughly 100 volunteers serving on the state’s Boards of Visitors. Established in 1927, the bodies help monitor the living conditions of the tens of thousands of New Yorkers who receive care from the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities and the Office of Mental Health.
Yet the boards for 22 state-run psychiatric centers and all but two of the state’s 13 regional disability offices have fewer members than the legal minimum. Two are entirely empty.
The board members are nominated by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate. In this year’s legislative session — which was squeezed due to a prolonged budget battle — the Senate confirmed only one candidate, even though 30 of the governor’s nominees were waiting to be voted on.
“Politics not functioning, as it typically doesn’t, is leaving people at risk,” said Elisa Tobia, one of the applicants waiting for approval to join Elmira Psychiatric Center’s oversight board. “It’s leaving people not receiving their rights.”
The state’s disability office operates a range of services for children and adults with disabilities: clinics, group homes, other residences, and placements with caretaker families. The mental health office runs about two dozen psychiatric facilities. State agencies conduct their own inspections of these facilities, too; the boards’ role is to provide civilian oversight.
“Our responsibility is to go visit those homes unannounced, ... write reports, and present them to the [state] administration,” said Ron Lehrer, 84, a Board of Visitors member for the state’s Taconic region disability office. “We go into the home, we observe the physical condition, how the residents look. We try to talk to the residents, see if they’re happy with their situation.”
Several members told New York Focus that their region’s board doesn’t have the capacity to inspect all — or even most — facilities each year, raising questions about whether homes for people with developmental disabilities and mental illness are getting the oversight they require.
Do you live or work in mental health or disability facilities? We want to hear from you. Reach out at benjy@nysfocus.com.
Most advocates agree that state-run programs have improved in New York since the appalling conditions at Willowbrook State School, an institution for children with developmental disabilities, became a major scandal in the 1970s. Following a trend toward deinstitutionalization, facilities today are smaller and less opaque. Still, abuse and neglect of people with disabilities or psychiatric illness persist. In 2007, a staff member at a state-run group home killed a 13-year-old boy by sitting on him until he suffocated.
Last year, New Yorkers reported more than 90,000 allegations of abuse, neglect, and other issues to the Justice Center, a state organization that oversees six agencies; most of the cases appear to stem from the disability and mental health agencies.
The Board of Visitors typically deals with quality-of-life concerns such as individuals’ well-being and facility operations, and members have the opportunity to attend weekly meetings reviewing investigations into allegations of abuse or neglect. Residents will sometimes approach a member directly to report wrongdoing by staff, Lehrer said. But getting to that level of trust with a resident takes time — something that many volunteers on the short-staffed boards don’t have.
“In the early days, I would argue that the Board of Visitors had much more impact than it probably does now,” said Erik Geizer, the chief executive officer of The Arc New York, a nonprofit that provides services to people with disabilities. “Over the last decade or so, I think things have languished.”
Two years ago, The Arc New York urged Governor Kathy Hochul to take action on the Board of Visitors vacancies. Yet staffing levels appear about the same today.
Past delays have driven away potential members, who sometimes find a different volunteer commitment to fill their time.
“Politics not functioning, as it typically doesn’t, is leaving people at risk.”
“People sign up, and they wait to be called,” Lehrer said. “By the time they’re contacted, they’re involved in something else.”
Susan Albamont, a member of the board for Rockland Children’s Psychiatric Center and the current president of the Association of Boards of Visitors, a statewide organization that educates and advocates for board members, said that many applicants will have to redo their paperwork. “I’m sure some people won’t go through it all again, so we’ve probably already lost a few candidates,” she said.
Beyond the logjam in Albany, finding and recruiting members to the boards has proved a challenge.
For one, the application process is cumbersome and time-consuming — taking up to two years. It involves filling out a detailed financial disclosure, undergoing a state background check with fingerprinting, and interviewing with a state senator.
“They check on your school, your college, everything,” said Fredricka Pol, 83, who has been on the Board of Visitors overseeing disability services in Manhattan and the Bronx since the early 1990s. “Even though my ex-husband is deceased, they wanted his obituary. Why would they want his obituary?”
Even getting reappointed, which a member has to do every four years, is no easy feat. Pol has had to get her fingerprints taken on Randall’s Island several times over her tenure, she said.
“With Board of Visitors members being Governor nominated, and Senate appointed, there is a background check and application process similar to that of all New York State-appointed staff,” said a spokesperson for Governor Kathy Hochul in a statement.
A spokesperson for the New York State Senate’s majority conference did not respond to requests for comment.
The Office for People With Developmental Disabilities said it was aware of the issue.
“OPWDD is actively working to fill Board of Visitors roles,” an agency spokesperson said. “OPWDD works with nominees on training and engaging them on a number of board-related activities while we await formal confirmation for voting purposes.”
The job itself can be tough. Members often travel across wide swaths of the state to inspect facilities, file regular reports with state administrators, and attend meetings to review patients’ treatment plans.
“It’s not exactly a great gig,” Geizer said. “There’s a lot of work involved, and there’s no compensation. The real benefit is simply having a desire to make sure people are receiving the best possible care.”
Every board member who spoke to New York Focus said they think the positions should remain unpaid, despite the difficulty in recruiting new volunteers. Many Board of Visitors members have a family member with a disability or psychiatric illness, adding a personal dimension to their work.
“I think the Senate just kind of forgot about us.”
Pat Wright, a former Association of Boards of Visitors president who had two children with disabilities, said that decades ago, the boards used to be two to three times their current size.
“We have missed things that came out later,” Wright said, noting that her board — overseeing the Capital District’s disability services — had failed to catch issues at facilities that someone later reported. “It takes a lot before people will start trusting you. More members would be more eyes and ears out there. And I’m sure people would feel more heard when there’s people who come in who want to hear.”
One reason the process of appointing new members is so slow, Wright suggested, may be that facility administrators review candidates and pass on their recommendations to the governor. That effectively puts them in charge of appointing their own watchdogs.
“I know there are times when the director doesn’t want somebody because they’re a pain and they’re constantly pointing out the shortfalls of the system,” she said. “And if their name goes in, they don’t get confirmed very quickly.”
When she led the statewide association, she had difficulty getting senators’ attention.
“Truthfully, I think the Senate just kind of forgot about us,” Wright said, “because we went to three or four senators who had never even heard of the Board of Visitors.”
Still, she said, the board’s remaining members are dedicated to the work.
For instance, she contacted the state disability office when a man with a disability was denied his annual request to see the Boston Red Sox play the New York Yankees in Boston.
“I had put in calls and when I finished, I thought, ‘Well, I guess it didn’t work,’” Wright said. “But then somebody called me the next day and said, ‘Hey, he’s on his way to Fenway.’”
