Gov. Josh Shapiro on Thursday announced that funding approved in the 2024-25 budget helped the state reduce the number of people with intellectual disabilities who are waiting for services by 28%.

Shapiro said the “extraordinary drop” was made possible because the state funding paid for wage boosts for workers who care for those with disabilities.

“That means 4,000 more people are getting services today than from the day I started this work. That’s meaningful change,” Shapiro said in an appearance at ARC Human Services in Canonsburg, Washington County.

Last year’s budget included a combined $354.8 million in federal and state funding for community-based service providers.

That funding included $280 million to help provide a 6% pay boost for direct support professionals. The budget also provided almost $75 million directed at getting people off the waiting list and into programs that can provide them needed services, Shapiro said.

The number of people with intellectual disabilities and autism receiving services funded by the Department of Human Services topped 40,000 for the first time in April.

Since then, another 1,000 people have been moved off the waiting list.

In March 2024, when Shapiro unveiled his first budget proposal, there were 13,000 people waiting for services or receiving fewer services than they needed, according to the Pennsylvania Waiting List Campaign.

Shapiro said the move to provide services is life-changing for people with disabilities and their family members who care for them.

Parents of children in need of services are “exhausted. Not for delivering wonderful, loving care for their kid, but exhausted by the bureaucracy, exhausted by the fact that they couldn’t get the dollars that they needed or the waiver that they needed to help the individual that they love the most.

And I didn’t want to see that exhaustion on people’s faces anymore. We wanted to help people like them,” Shapiro said.

Secretary of Human Services Val Arkoosh said the agency will continue to work to reduce the number of people waiting for services and said she is looking forward to another event to celebrate cutting the waiting list in half.

“We are putting the puzzle pieces together to ensure that every person is able to live their everyday life, whatever that looks like for them,” she said.