Spectrum Arch, Inc.Start with the PRA
Your Personal Resource Account (PRA) is the maximum amount available for your Self-Direction budget each year. OPWDD sets it using its approved needs assessment, which looks at the person's strengths, needs, and support level. OPWDD is moving adults onto its Coordinated Assessment System (CAS) for this.
The budget can't go over the PRA. Everything you plan has to fit within it.
What goes into a budget
A Self-Direction budget lists the supports you plan to buy for the year. Depending on the person, it may include:
- Self-hired staff, such as community habilitation or respite workers you recruit and supervise
- Services bought from provider agencies
- Individual Directed Goods and Services (IDGS), like a class or membership tied to a goal
- Support Brokerage and Fiscal Intermediary services
- Housing subsidy, where it applies
Every line has to connect back to a need or goal in the person's Life Plan.
The budget template
OPWDD publishes an official Self-Direction budget template, and budgets are submitted on it. OPWDD updates the template from time to time, so always use the current version. Your Support Broker prepares the budget with you and your Circle of Support, and it is then reviewed and approved before services start.
The budget year
Each budget has an annual effective date. That date sets the year your budget runs, and your spending cap resets on its anniversary. Total spending in any budget year can't exceed the PRA.
Start-up costs are separate
Support Brokerage during the start-up phase, while the first budget is being built, is funded separately and doesn't come out of the PRA. Read more in your first months with a Support Broker.
Budgets change
Needs change, staff leave, and new goals come up. Budgets can be amended during the year. See budget changes and renewal.
Sources: OPWDD Self-Direction Guidance (March 2022); OPWDD, Self-Direction Budget Template and Housing Subsidies memorandum; OPWDD, Self-Direction.