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http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/health/2015/12/01/new-state-program-planned-people-disabilities/76609828/ New state program planned for people with disabilities By July, the last of the Tennesseans with intellectual disabilities who have been confined — in some cases since childhood — to large and often isolated state facilities will move into neighborhood homes, ending an era in which institutionalizing people with autism or Down syndrome was standard practice. The closure of Nashville's 92-year-old Clover Bottom Developmental Center this month and the expected closure of Greene Valley Developmental Center in East Tennessee next year will save the state tens of millions of dollars each year on intensive, 24-hour institutional care. Those funds will be directed toward a new program intended to serve people with disabilities such as autism, cerebral palsy, spina bifida and people with IQ's below 70, who currently receive no services. The new budget proposals were presented to Gov. Bill Haslam on Tuesday by the state's TennCare program and the Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. More than 6,000 people are on a wait list for state services. Some have been on the list for more than a decade. The proposed new program — the Employment and Community First CHOICES — will cost the state approximately $24 million in its first year and serve up to 1,700 people. The program will provide job training and in-home services designed to keep people with disabilities as independent as possible in their own homes and with families. About $5 million of the new costs will come directly from the savings in closing Greene Valley, where the per person cost of 24-hour institutionalized care topped $420,000 last year. At Clover Bottom, the cost of care was approximately $500,000 per person annually, more than twice the national average at similar institutions. Nationally, other states are also in the process of shutting down similar facilities. The budget presentations by TennCare and the Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, or DIDD, are among 26 that Gov. Haslam will hear this week as he weighs his own comprehensive budget proposal to the legislature. Haslam has asked each agency to present a plan with a 3.5 percent cut. Democrats have criticized Haslam's efforts to pare budgets, citing higher-than-expected state revenues this year.