wa-law.org > bill > 2025-26 > HB 2200 > Substitute Bill
The legislature finds that the state uses a mixed-delivery model for developmental disability services, relying on both state-operated facilities and placements and contracted private providers.
The legislature further finds that reliable data regarding client safety, stability, and law enforcement interaction is well-documented within state-operated facilities but lacks standardization across the network of private vendors.
The legislature intends to conduct a review of recent data and establish ongoing data collection and reporting to ensure that taxpayers and families have access to an honest, apples-to-apples comparison of safety and stability outcomes across all residential service settings.
The joint legislative audit and review committee shall conduct a review of safety and stability outcomes across the department of social and health services developmental disabilities residential services continuum, as provided in this section.
The review must aggregate and compare data as described in subsections (3) and (4) of this section from the following settings for the period of January 1, 2023, through December 31, 2026:
Residential habilitation centers;
State-operated living alternatives; and
Contracted community-based residential settings, including group homes, group training homes, residential supported living, companion homes, and other similar settings.
For each setting, the review must include the following information, per calendar year, for clients assessed by the department of social and health services as having a high behavior acuity level, a high medical acuity level, or both, according to the developmental disabilities assessment:
The number of calls to 911 due to client behavioral management needs or crisis intervention;
The number of emergency room visits where the client was medically cleared for discharge but remained in the hospital due to lack of an available provider acceptance based in full or in part on behavioral or safety concerns; and
The number of instances where a client's residential placement was terminated due to the client's behavioral challenges, resulting in a transfer to state custody, incarceration, or homelessness.
The review must also include the following information for each setting identified in subsection (2) of this section:
The annual census of high behavioral or medical acuity clients in each setting, and the percentage of the overall client census that these clients represent for each setting; and
A comparison of staff retention rates across each setting.
The review must include a recommended methodology for collecting and analyzing the information described in subsections (3) and (4) of this section on an ongoing basis, including recommended minimum viable measures, data standardization techniques, and other methods for accurately comparing and portraying data across included settings, in consideration of the ongoing reporting requirement in section 3 of this act.
By December 1, 2027, and in compliance with RCW 43.01.036, the joint legislative audit and review committee shall compile its review findings into a report to the legislature.
The department shall produce an annual report to the legislature, in compliance with RCW 43.01.036, of the data measures described in section 2 (3) and (4) of this act, and publish the report on its website, to allow families, guardians, and other members of the public to view aggregate data on emergency service utilization and placement stability for contracted residential settings as compared to state-operated residential settings for department clients with developmental disabilities. The department shall collect and organize the data necessary to complete the annual report in a manner that is informed by the methodology recommended by the joint legislative audit and review committee under section 2 of this act.
The first report must be completed by September 1, 2028, and must include data starting from January 1, 2027. The report must be updated on an annual basis thereafter with updates completed by September 1st of each year.