ROCKDALE, Texas (KRHD) — The MARC Center’s day programming may end due to financial challenges like insufficient Medicaid reimbursement rates, which haven’t kept up with costs.
- Central Counties Services, which has been running the program since the 1990s, has been covering a nearly $1 million deficit in 2024 to pay staff and continue operations.
- Now, they're cutting the day programming at the MARC Center in Rockdale and at their location in Temple due to low Medicaid reimbursement rates, reflecting struggles across Texas.
- The MARC Board has until Aug. 31 to find another provider before services end.
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The MARC Center has been serving special needs adults in our community since the 1960s.
But it may have to end its day programming soon.
"It's just one of those things that happens when money's not there to provide the service," MARC Board Director Ann King said.
15 ABC spoke to representatives for Central Counties Services, which runs the service.
They tell15 ABC even though the MARC Board provides the building, the program is medicaid-funded.
Most of the time they've been operating with not enough funding.
"Those Medicaid rates are so low that they do not support the cost of delivering the services," Executive Director Johnnie Wardell said.
Like paying staff — reimbursement starts at $10.60 in Texas.
"We, historically, have always paid higher than that rate because we want to have good, dedicated staff," Andrea Erskine, the director of Intellectual and Developmental Disability Services, said.
That cost them almost a million dollars to run all its programs in 2024.
"That deficit that we're having to cover with other revenue streams is growing and to a point where there was a decision to start making some very difficult decisions," Wardell said.
For parents like Susan Dwyer, the decision is devastating.
"It's going to be very hard for her [daughter] because she really liked it, and it's time for them to get away from their parents and out of the houses," Dwyer said.
But MARC Board Director Ann King tells me they're trying to find another provider before service ends in August.
"We know that this community has supported this program for 60 years, and they're not going to stop now, and we're not going to stop now," King said.
