Marimor Industries to split from Allen County DD, become private entity

Because of a 2014 federal mandate from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Marimor Industries will soon become a private entity, transitioning away from being under the Allen County Board of Developmental Disabilities.

As of July 1, Marimor will have its own independent board and staff, along with the developmentally disabled staff it currently employs. The mandate requires that direct service providers receive Medicaid money directly rather than going through a county board to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

“We have to get out of the direct services, and Marimor Industries provides direct Medicaid services,” according to Allen County Board of DD Superintendent Theresa Schnipke. “So we’ve been working very well together in figuring out how to separate the board from Marimor Industries.”

The downside to this move, Schnipke said, is that only around 40 of the more than 70 staff members affected by this move will transition over to the newly privatized Marimor, leaving the others laid off.

“They were public servants all of these years,” she said. “Some are going back to school and some have accepted other jobs. That’s why we talk about this being very difficult. Many of the people have been in the field of DD for a long time, and we hate to see them go.”

Some of those losses will be in the transportation department, with the board no longer to have yellow school buses to transport students to Marimor. The buses have been donated to area school districts, who have made arrangements to transport Marimor students in their districts to the school. Marimor Industries will go to using vans for their transportation needs.

Despite this transition, Schnipke emphasized that the services offered at Marimor will be the same quality that people have come to expect, with these changes mainly centering around administration.

“The most important thing to know is that our board still has to oversee, monitor and pay for the services at Marimor Industries,” she said. “It’s just that they have to become a private entity, just like many other service providers we have in town.”

https://limaohio.com/news/183984/marimor-industries-to-split-from-allen-county-dd-become-private-entity