December 23, 2016
Payson Roundup

Editor:

CPES, Inc. was founded in 1980 and is one of Arizona’s largest statewide providers of Developmental Disability and Behavioral Health Services. CPES is 100 percent employee owned and currently employs over 1,000 individuals across Arizona. CPES has provided developmental disability services in Payson for over 15 years and currently employs over 40 staff in Payson.

CPES historically took pride in serving some of the state’s most complex, challenging and costly consumers in both rural and urban settings throughout Arizona. Since 2009, our organization, employees, and consumers have experienced the impact of multiple
funding cuts by the state of Arizona, which have not been fully restored to date.

This perpetual underfunding in Arizona has resulted in a significant deterioration of the quality of services and has facilitated unabated turnover and financial implications of underfunding for CPES. CPES employees have received a series of wage cuts, benefit reductions, and understandably, many have left the industry as a whole.
The $10 per hour minimum wage will result in an economic impact of $1.9 million dollars per-year for CPES Arizona operations next year alone. Employee recruitment has been especially difficult in Payson and other rural areas. The inability to attract and retain qualified staff has resulted in excessive overtime which is projected to exceed $2 million dollars in calendar year 2017.

Without a sufficient funding increase provided by the state of
Arizona, CPES will be forced to close and/or consolidate services throughout the state of Arizona in order to stay in business. Further, CPES will no longer have the ability to respond to any Arizona vendor call for services, and will cease all business development activities within the public sector in Arizona.

Rural markets such as Payson afford few opportunities to gain operating efficiencies and as a result the cost of doing business for CPES is significantly higher. Therefore, over 100 FTEs will be targeted for lay-off, principally in rural markets such as Flagstaff, Benson, Payson, Wilcox, Safford, Bullhead City, Douglas, and Sierra Vista.

This is real and it is serious. The state needs to include funding to increase reimbursement rates for providers of services to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities as soon as possible. Arizona must compensate service providers fairly or face the collapse of the entire developmental services system throughout the state. Clearly, continuity of our business and the lives of the most vulnerable citizens in Arizona are at risk.

Mark Monson, president/CEO CPES, Inc.