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Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities 2025 priorities

Australians who follow international disability policy often look across the Pacific for ideas that could shape their own advocacy. The Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities, a federally funded state body in the United States, recently released its recommendations for 2025, and the document carries weight for anyone interested in how Home and Community-Based Services can be reshaped. While the recommendations focus on the U.S. state of Georgia, several themes echo conversations happening around the National Disability Insurance Scheme and state-level reforms in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane.

The Council operates independently from state agencies, which means it can speak openly about gaps in services, wait-list bottlenecks, and the lived experience of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Its 2025 paper outlines a roadmap for state legislators, drawing on community surveys and testimony from self-advocates. Readers in Australia will recognise many of the underlying tensions: workforce shortages, housing affordability, and the slow pace of plan reviews.

What sets the 2025 recommendations apart is the emphasis on practical, near-term change rather than long-range aspiration. The Council has identified specific Medicaid waiver amendments, funding mechanisms, and accountability measures. For Australian readers, the document also offers a useful benchmark for measuring how well their own schemes respond to families waiting years for therapy, supported employment, and respite.

A fresh look at Medicaid waiver expansion

The central pillar of the 2025 agenda is widening access to the state's Medicaid waiver programmes, particularly the Comprehensive Supports and the New Options waivers. The Council argues that thousands of Georgians remain on waiting lists not because they fail to qualify, but because the state has not allocated enough funded slots. It recommends an annual increase in waiver capacity, tied to inflation and population growth, so the system does not fall further behind.

The Council also pushes for a streamlined eligibility process. Many families report months of paperwork before a determination is made, and the Council wants standardised assessment tools adopted across all regions. Anyone facing their first interview can review a practical walkthrough on How to Prepare for Your Medicaid Waiver Eligibility Interview, which mirrors the kind of preparation the Council endorses.

A secondary recommendation involves raising the financial eligibility ceiling for the waiver, since the current threshold can exclude working-age adults who earn modest wages but still need daily support. The Council points to similar adjustments made in other U.S. states as evidence that higher limits do not significantly inflate overall programme costs.

Strengthening the direct support workforce

Workforce capacity is the second major theme, and the Council treats it as an emergency rather than a planning issue. Direct support professionals, the people who provide day-to-day assistance in homes and communities, are leaving the field at unsustainable rates. The 2025 recommendations call for a baseline wage floor, portable benefits, and funded training pathways that recognise the skilled nature of the work.

The Council also wants the state to credentialise the role, similar to how aged care workers in Australia are now expected to hold Certificate III qualifications. Credentialing would not only raise standards but also give workers a clearer career ladder. In Victoria and New South Wales, similar discussions are underway as the NDIS Workforce Plan is reviewed.

Finally, the Council recommends a centralised job-matching platform that connects qualified workers with families who need them. Such a platform would reduce the burden on families, who often rely on community noticeboards or word of mouth to find reliable support. The approach mirrors local efforts in places like Western Sydney, where disability service hubs are piloting matching services.

Comparing waiver pathways in Georgia and the NDIS

A useful way to understand the Council's priorities is to set them alongside the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme. The table below highlights key differences in how each system approaches funding, access, and review.

Feature Georgia Medicaid waivers Australian NDIS
Funding source Federal-state Medicaid match Federal insurance scheme
Wait for plan Often 5+ years on lists Typically weeks to months
Plan portability Limited across counties National portability
Review cycle Every 3-5 years Annual or biennial
Self-direction Available but underused Built into most plans

The comparison shows that Georgia families face a far longer horizon before receiving services. The Council's recommendations effectively ask the state to compress those waiting periods and adopt a more individualised funding model.

Housing, community presence, and choice

The Council devotes significant attention to housing, a topic that resonates strongly with Australian readers in cities where rental costs have soared. The recommendations call for a dedicated rental subsidy for waiver participants, set-aside units in new affordable housing developments, and protections against eviction when a participant's behaviour is linked to their disability.

The Council also pushes back on the legacy of congregate care settings, arguing that small, scattered-site supported living arrangements deliver better outcomes and respect participant choice. A pilot programme in metropolitan Atlanta, which the Council cites, produced measurable gains in daily living skills and community participation. The same model has been trialled in parts of Queensland, where supported independent living is being expanded through NDIS funding.

The recommendations further encourage partnerships with local housing authorities and nonprofit developers to bring new accessible units online by 2027. The Council notes that without housing investment, other reforms, including employment and education, cannot succeed.

Education transition and supported employment

Transition planning for school leavers is another priority, and the Council wants the state to mandate that every student with a developmental disability has a written transition plan by age 14. The plan would cover further education, vocational training, supported employment, and community participation. Australian readers will recognise this from the National Disability Insurance Scheme's School Leaver Employment Supports initiative.

The Council also recommends expanding subminimum wage certificates, which currently allow some employers to pay below the state minimum. The Council argues these certificates should be phased out and replaced with customised employment programmes that pay at least the standard wage. A small set of policy changes is summarised below.

For the Australian context, these ideas mirror the push to end the Supported Wage System and lift wages for workers with disability. Both reforms rely on employer engagement, which the Council suggests can be encouraged through targeted tax credits.

Self-advocacy, families, and culturally responsive support

The Council places significant weight on self-advocacy, urging the state to fund leadership training for people with developmental disabilities and to reserve seats on advisory boards for self-advocates. It also calls for culturally responsive outreach, recognising that Black, Hispanic, and rural communities in Georgia often face additional barriers to accessing services.

The recommendations include translation services, community navigators, and partnerships with trusted community organisations. In Australia, similar outreach models are run by groups like Carers Australia and the Ethnic Communities Council, which help families from non-English speaking backgrounds engage with the NDIS.

A small number of family-focused measures also appears in the 2025 plan.

These measures aim to reduce the administrative load on families, many of whom describe the current system as a maze of forms and phone calls. The complexity can feel comparable to navigating expedited residence permit applications through a foreign consulate, a process that requires extensive documentation and patient follow-up.

Funding mechanisms and legislative accountability

The final section of the Council's recommendations addresses the money question. Without new revenue, the other recommendations risk remaining on paper. The Council supports a small premium adjustment on managed care plans, a redirection of unused institutional funds, and a dedicated disability trust fund that cannot be diverted to other state priorities.

It also calls for an annual public report to the state legislature, tracking wait-list numbers, average time to service, and participant outcomes. The report would be presented by the Council itself, giving self-advocates a direct line to lawmakers. Australian readers will see parallels with the NDIS Quarterly Reports published by the National Disability Insurance Agency.

The Council ends its 2025 document with a reminder that accountability structures, not just funding levels, determine whether a disability system delivers on its promises. For families still waiting years for a single therapy session, that message carries the weight of a generation's worth of advocacy.

The clearest takeaway is that meaningful change depends on three things working together: expanded funding, a trained and fairly paid workforce, and a system that listens to the people it serves. Australian readers watching these debates can use the Council's recommendations as a checklist for their own reforms, pressing local candidates and members of parliament to commit to timelines, transparent reporting, and genuine participant voice.