Letter from Leadership: Georgia Urgently Needs 1,217 NOW/COMP Waivers — The Data Proves It

Pop quiz! How many NOW/COMP waivers does Georgia *urgently* need?

a. Between 50 and 500

b. We don’t know

c. 1,217

The answer is C. The state urgently needs 1,217 new NOW/COMP waivers.

How do we know? Because we have the data.

During 2025, GCDD staff and Council members were part of a group that worked closely with staff from the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities (DBHDD). Part of that work was about DBHDD’s future plans. Those future plans are to:

• Create a new tool to determine who qualifies for a waiver.
• Split the waiting list into three groups.
• Create a new waiver. That work will take at least another year.

But we all know there are people on the waiting list for a NOW or COMP waiver who can’t wait another year. Caregiving relatives die. People are abandoned in emergency rooms or stuck in hospitals. Young people leave foster care. People in those situations are at extreme risk of crisis if they don’t get a waiver. And by crisis, I mean homelessness, exploitation, incarceration, or death.

It's horrible, but it makes sense. We are talking about some of the most vulnerable folks in the state of Georgia. Remember, it’s hard to even qualify for a NOW/COMP waiver. So, we’re talking about people with the most significant disabilities who are in the hardest situations. If we don’t support them, their lives can unravel quickly. While their situations are usually less dire, students graduating from high school are also included on the urgent list. The goal is to help them move smoothly into community life instead of getting stuck at home with nothing to do. Without this support, parents often have to quit their jobs to take care of them.

This list of people who urgently need waivers is where the other part of our work with DBHDD comes in.

Our working group was made up of GCDD staff and members, DBHDD staff, people with disabilities, family members, and service providers. In the fall of 2025, we all knew that DBHDD’s updated tool and waiting list process would not be ready for some time. And we knew there were plenty of Georgians out there – like the folks mentioned above - who can’t wait for that work to be finished.

The group decided to use DBHDD’s current data to determine how many Georgians urgently need a waiver. I appreciate the DBHDD staff who worked hard digging into their data.

That data shows 1678 Georgians will urgently need a waiver over the next year. The department estimates that 400 people leave waiver services each year, and 61 people leave the waiting list each year.

That means the state needs 1,217 new NOW/COMP waivers in the budget to meet the urgent need. And to administer all those waivers, the department needs 26 new staff members.

Currently, there are only 100 new waivers and no new staff in the state budget. We’ve got work to do.

If you want to advocate to get more urgently needed waivers for Georgians with I/DD, reach out to your state representative and state senator now at https://gcdd.quorum.us/campaign/155704/. Join us for our final Advocacy Day on March 4th. Follow our social media and sign up for email updates to stay informed!

Waivers and enough staffing to support them are one of our top public policy priorities at GCDD. Our other top priorities are:

• Preserving, protecting and improving education for students with I/DD,
• No cuts to Medicaid for Georgians with I/DD, and
• Creating a long-term body working across state agencies to improve services and coordination.

The Council has chosen to focus on these priorities based on input from you, the community we serve. In future Letter from Leadership articles, we’ll take a deep dive into those priorities.

Meanwhile, keep the advocacy UP and enjoy this issue of Making a Difference!

D'Arcy Robb
GCDD Executive Director