By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
LOWER MANHATTAN — Therapists who treat young children with developmental delays say they will be forced to leave their jobs if the state goes through with its plan to cut their pay by over 30 percent.
More than 100 therapists turned out to a public hearing in Greenwich Village Tuesday afternoon to urge the state to scrap changes that the therapists say will force them to work harder for less money.
"It hurts my heart," said Nina Friedman, 56, a speech pathologist from Queens who said she would have to look for a higher-paying job. "These babies need us. [But] we're being paid less to take on more cases."
The state's Early Intervention program provides free, intensive therapy to children from birth to age 3 with autism and developmental delays.
To save $6.2 million a year, the state plans to change how it calculates therapists' pay, by reimbursing therapists based on 15-minute increments rather than for each session. In New York City, therapists who were making $60 for a half-hour session would only make about $40, advocates said.
But Brad Hutton, who oversees Early Intervention at the State Department of Health, told the therapists that the goal was to give them more flexibility by allowing them to schedule longer sessions of up to 60 minutes. Longer sessions also mean that the therapists would not have to travel as much, Hutton said.
"This could, if it works, be better for the therapists," Hutton said.
Many people in the audience laughed, and one man called out, "No way!"
The changes were originally supposed to go into effect on July 1, but after hearing from concerned therapists and parents, the state decided to get more public comments. Now, the state plans to phase the new rules in over the next year, starting Oct. 1.
As a result of other Early Intervention cuts, at least five local therapy centers have already shut their doors in the past couple of months. Leslie Grubler, founding director of United New York Early Intervention Providers, found that 75 percent of her 1,500 members plan to leave their job because of pay cuts.
One of those people is Olivier Grielen, 55, a physical therapist who lives on the Upper West Side. Grielen said it makes no sense for the state to cut Early Intervention services, because helping children when they're young saves the government money in the long run — about $7 for every $1 spent, advocates estimate.
"I've been 32 years in this field and I've never seen anything like this," Grielen said. "I feel that morally, we've lost our compass."
