At an all-staff rally of Village employees, residents, and key contributors, on Oct. 2,  Barry Whitsell, President and CEO, announced the creation of the Robert D. and Esther Hoogeveen Legacy Endowment For Direct Support Professionals.

The Legacy Endowment was created to honor the Legacy of Bob Hoogeveen, the founding CEO of the Village and his wife Esther, and their commitment and belief that to carry out the Village mission of Purpose, Privacy and Dignity, it required a staff of quality, compassionate and motivated direct care staff.  The direct care professionals provide the day-to-day care for the 200 people served by the Village and form the foundation for this nationally recognized service provider that serves individuals who have a disability. 

Creation of the Legacy Endowment was also in response to the inadequate level of reimbursement provided to human service agencies under the Medicaid program.  Whitsell cited the following examples of how the Medicaid system is jeopardizing the care of people with special needs:

• Many residential providers, such as the Village, have only seen Medicaid rate increases of 13.4% in a 15 year time frame, or less than 1% per year, while inflation over that same period of time has increased by 48.5%, or 3.2% per year.
• Property taxes for services purchased from the counties in Iowa have been frozen for 15 years and counties have been forced to cut services.  Over 30 people at the Village have been affected by these cutbacks this past year.
• Redemption centers that process recycled bottles and cans have not received an increase in the $0.01 processing fee since the Bottle Bill went into effect in Iowa in 1978--30 years ago.
• When the State of Iowa adopted new minimum wage standards,  reimbursement rates for providers like VNU did not increase.

Because of this insufficient Medicaid funding, Village leadership devised a plan to create an endowment and use the investment income from the Legacy Endowment to more fairly compensate direct support professionals and reflect the importance of the work that they perform.  A total of over 300 Village employees will benefit from the distributions from the Legacy Endowment.

Amy Muecke, Director of People Development indicated that the Legacy Endowment, in addition to increasing direct support professional compensation to be more competitive, will decrease employee turnover and save dollars spent on recruitment, training, and orientation costs.

Whitsell noted that the Legacy Endowment will secure the future care of VNU residents by having competent, qualified and caring direct support staff that provide a level of consistency so important to those served.

The total amount pledged and contributed to the Legacy Endowment from the lead gift phase of the campaign has been $4,800,885.41.  The drive was spearheaded, Whitsell stated, by a matching gift of $1 million from a family that has a loved one living at the Village.

“This family recognizes the importance of having compassionate, loving staff that have a passion for the people we serve.  When we originally talked to them about the concept, they were immediately supportive of it and their generous spirit and gift provided the catalyst for the initial success in the development of the Robert D. and Esther Hoogeveen Legacy Endowment For Direct Support Professionals.  Their commitment to the mission of the Village goes beyond the dollars they pledged.”