It has been suggested that CVRC should have send the $500,000 in surplus funds to the State, alleging these were taxpayer funds. Again, this information is incorrect. The excess funds don’t belong to taxpayers any more than Senator Florez’ saving account funds belong to the taxpayers. The State made a contracted agreement to pay the privately owned CVRC a specific amount to perform their job, and while other regional centers in California failed to manage their money appropriately, CVRC made the necessary operations adjustments to provide their promised, contracted services within their budget. Other regional centers are actually having to go back to the State to request additional money, due to their irresponsible management of what they were paid. Senator Florez should consider contacting CVRC director Robert Riddick and the Board and asking them to provide insight and training on how to manage a regional center in a fiscally responsible manner. In a time when so many companies are failing, isn’t is refreshing to see one that does their job for the agree-upon price?

Another misconception a few people have is in regards to the State cutting dental, vision, and podiatry services to disabled adults. This was a decision that California lawmakers made, including Senator Dean Florez; so CVRC has no way of providing those services, even with the paltry $500,000 left over from the operations budget. Unfortunately, the CVRC operations budget is completely separate from their budget to provide services, so it is actually illegal for CVRC to use that $500,000 for anything other than operations, including payment of staff members who made sacrifices in order to stay within their means.

Finally, there is a great deal of ignorance concerning the Board of Directors for CVRC. They have been called imbeciles, lacking in foresight, and described in other negative and invalid ways. Two facts should help educate everyone with an opinion of the board members, and resolve this argument once and for all. The Board did not vote to give themselves any of the $500,000 in salary adjustments. They voted to award the money to case managers who have had to take on the workload of 17 vacant positions that have not been filled. They voted to award the money to employees who have not been allowed to claim any overtime pay, despite the fact that they have taken on much more responsibility with, before now, absolutely no additional compensation. The Board voted to award the money to people who did everything asked of them in order to fulfill their State contract without begging for more money. One uninformed individual said that the board members don’t know what clients and vendors are going through; yes they do. CVRC’s Board of Directors and committees are made up of clients, parents, vendors, and community leaders and absolutely know what clients and vendors are going through. This is not something being reported in local papers for some reason, but the Board and committees are actually comprised of the very vendors and clients that CVRC services. You cannot get much more ethical than this. The Board knows what vendors and clients are going through and they also know what CVRC employees are going through and have gone through in order to be fully responsible with the money taxpayers paid them to perform a valuable service to our community.

(Matthew Varpness is a local educator who hopes this article will help others come to ethical, sound conclusions based on logical thought.)

When CVRC’s executive director Robert Riddick wrote to Senator Florez and informed the Senator that the Board had voted to return the funds, Mr. Riddick requested that the money be earmarked especially “for programs and services under the Department of Developmental Services.” Senator Florez should have been thrilled to hear this, and should have assured Riddick that the funds would be used in such a manner; he did not. Instead, Senator Florez said, “I will see what avenues are still available to make that happen.” In other words, there is no guarantee the money will be used for the disabled community at all, and if one were to look at Sacramento’s track record with management of the general funds, it won’t happen at all.

While we can appreciate the fact that Senator Florez offered to take a voluntary cut of 5% from his own salary a few months ago, it should be noted that the $500,000 in funds were already allocated to the operations of CVRC, have already been paid to the employees (in many cases, have already been spent), and such a return is not voluntary but forced by the Board under the pressure and threats of the California State government. This is not the same as Senator Dean Florez’ generous pay reduction. Telling CVRC to return the $500,000 in well-managed “leftover” funds is more like telling Senator Florez to return all of the salary he has “left over” after paying his mortgage, utilities, and gardeners. CVRC was responsible with their operations funds, as I’m sure Senator Florez is responsible with what he has been given.

At the risk of introducing an ad hominem argument, it should also be said that Senator Florez raised no concern with a proposal that passed and went into effect July 1st which cut dental, vision, and podiatry services to all adult Medi-Cal recipients, including those with developmental disabilities. Granted Senator Florez was not on the subcommittee which dealt with this proposal, but it is concerning that he would ignore such a huge cut to services, while complaining about the CVRC funds that were legally awarded to CVRC employees instead of being returned to him and his constituents. As State Senator Dean Florez prepares for his 2010 run as Lieutenant Governor of the State of California, I sincerely hope he is not using this issue to garner favor with California voters, being that corporate bonuses have been such a hot topic recently. The elimination of vital dental and vision care for the disabled community is a much more important issue, but thus far has received little or no attention from Senator Florez simply because it is not an issue being discussed in the public eye right now.