The need to pay better wages to workers in the mental-retardation field has been evident for years. So evident, in fact, the Legislature last session approved a bill that would have brought wages in that field to a par with pay in competing fields. Passing the bill, however, was one thing, finding money to go along with it turned out to be something else altogether. The legislation is back this year, and, once again, lawmakers ought to support it, only this time include the money.

LD 1275 gets at a fairly simple problem that has broad, undesirable consequences. The law wages for providers of services to the mentally retarded harms the quality of care, its continuity and its availability, Consider, after four years of experience in this field, a state-funded worker at a community facility earns, on average, $7.47 an hour, a figure that has not moved for a decade. By comparison, after four years of working at a facility for the mentally ill, such as Augusta Mental Health Institute, a similarly trained worker earns approximately $9 an hour.

This disparity produces exactly what you would expect. Turnover at places that serve the mentally retarded is high, mistakes made are often the mistakes of inexperience, the facilities spend a lot of time and effort training new workers, only to see them leave. Richard A. Estabrook, Maine’s chief advocate for the retarded, describes the problem well: “Mistakes in most entry level jobs do not have life or death consequences. Not so in the mental retardation field. Carelessness in feeding, bathing, transporting or dispensing medication for people with mental retardation can have grave consequences.”

The result of high turnover because of low wages, according to Mr. Estabrook, is that rather than extensive training courses, “indoctrination of most new direct care workers is now done `on-the-job’ by other direct care workers. This can result in frustrated, resentful staff, or staff who invent their own inhumane methods of control.”

A task force more than a year ago looked at the wage problem and came to a similar conclusion. LD 1275 enacts the recommendations of the task force, adding $2.8 million a year to the Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services for workers at community mental retardation and intermediate care facilities. This is money that originally was in the department’s budget, but never made it into the proposal to the Legislature.

Lawmakers should support both the bill’s language and its price tag this time. Rarely will they find such an easy way to improve and expand the quality of care for a vulnerable population in Maine.