Dottie Kerr has been fighting for state-funded services for her autistic, 18-year-old son since Will was a toddler.

But even after winning a legal battle with a regional agency that denied Will was developmentally disabled, she is still on an eight-year waiting list for services.

"It is infuriating that you pay taxes and you have a handicapped child . . . and we get no benefits at all," said the Aurora single mother.

The fiftysomething mom is among thousands of aging Colorado parents who live with the fear that they could die, leaving their vulnerable loved one with no support because of state service backlogs requiring them to wait 10 years or longer.

For Will, who has the coping skills of a 3- to 7-year-old child, Kerr wants assurances that he will have help taking his medication, shopping for groceries, perhaps getting job training.

"A lot of people get tired and they give up on the system. So 80- and 90-year-old parents end up taking care of their (adult) special needs kids," Kerr said.

Now state Rep. Mike Garcia, D-Aurora, is pushing to create a General Assembly committee to explore what's causing the backlog in services for nearly 8,000 of Colorado's most vulnerable citizens.

"We're talking about life-over- death situations for many of these individuals," Garcia said. "And for us to have a backlog in the thousands is to me just proof that the system isn't working."

Garcia will soon introduce a resolution to form the interim committee of 10 lawmakers, five from each chamber.

The panel's goals include giving parents more transparency about the mysterious, frustrating system of 20 regional agency boards that determine who receives $350 million in annual federal, state and local funding for an array of services for the developmentally disabled.

This can range from around- the-clock home care for the severely disabled to job training, housing assistance, adult diapers and nutritional drinks.

This week Garcia told a meeting of parents, providers and advocates for the disabled that the proposed committee would examine creative ways to revamp the system, whose federal, state and county funding sources remain fairly static year to year. That might include scrapping the 40-year-old system of having each of the 20 regional agency boards maintain a separate waiting list for a centralized system run by the state Department of Human Services.

John Meeker can understand why parents like Dottie Kerr are frustrated. His nonprofit agency, Developmental Pathways, serves the developmentally disabled in Arapahoe, Jefferson and part of Adams counties.

"We have these enormous waiting lists and we have people in crisis constantly, because resources have been stagnant for a long time," Meeker said. State rules make the waiting lists a moving target, he added, because a crisis case jumps to the front of the line.

Dottie Kerr speaks with a mixture of pride and anxiety about her son's future.

An artist, he's about to graduate from high school and dreams of being an animator or designing nonpolluting hydrogen-fueled cars.

But he'll never be able to live with complete independence, his mom says. He suffers from seizures requiring constant medication and can't be safely left alone for long periods.

"If a truck hit me tomorrow, that's my real concern: What would happen to him?" the mother said.

The disabled and their families

3,175 severely disabled adults and children are on the urgent priority waiting list for around-the-clock care or supportive-living services.

4,583 families are waiting for family-support services for disabled children.

$350 million is the proposed 2007-08 state budget for developmentally disabled services.

111 openings are available for nearly 8,000 individuals on waiting lists statewide.

Source: State Department Of Human Services And State Legislature

gathrighta@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5486

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