Olmstead Plan Needs Revisions — And Maybe A Rewrite — To Help Minnesotans With Disabilities [OPINION]

By Jane McClure, Minnesota Reformer

May 7, 2026

Minnesota is currently engaged in a rewrite of what’s called its Olmstead Plan, which is named for a 1999 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that people with disabilities must receive services in the most integrated setting possible. The decision highlighted the need for community integration and compliance with the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act.

The ruling promised to open doors for disabled people to leave institutions and end decades of isolating segregation. It was meant to provide opportunities for a full life in a community, for employment, housing, transportation and more. A key focus was to promote person-centered planning, independence and self-determination.

The public comment period on the draft has opened. A survey in English closes May 8; the survey in Spanish, Hmong, Somali and ASL will be open through May 23. (You can take the survey here.)

Some brief history: States were ordered to adopt Olmstead Plans. Minnesota lagged behind, prodded along in 2011 by a federal class-action lawsuit settlement focused on abuse of a state program’s developmentally disabled residents. Part of the settlement ordered Minnesota to develop an Olmstead Plan.

Then-Gov. Mark Dayton created an Olmstead subcabinet in 2013. Members representing state agencies and organizations for people with disabilities drafted a goal-focused plan. The first plan was adopted two years later, with a commitment to regular updates.

Minnesota Compass tells us that approximately 660,000 to 700,000 Minnesotans, or about 11.5% to 12% of the state’s population, live with one or more disabilities. The prevalence of disability increases with age. More than 60% of adults aged 85 and older live with a disability or disabilities.

The disability community is unique because anyone can join at any time. One injury, one fall and you’re one of us.

The current Olmstead Plan update and its goals would focus the work of state agencies to provide person-centered choices and independence for disabled Minnesotans.

The goals include expectations of added or expanded state services in key life areas like housing, transportation, education and employment, as well as targets for the number of people served.

The goals show legal compliance with the ADA and its mandates on community integration. Goals are supposed to provide concrete targets to work toward, have measurable outcomes, be easily tracked and be accountable to the disability community.

As the latest revisions near completion, however, several aspects of the draft plan merit further scrutiny and attention. The plan might even benefit from a rewrite.

Just to start: Parts of the document don’t meet the “plain language” standard and are difficult to understand.

ADA compliance-related goals need to be spelled out. We are told that a goal is to reduce institutional placements, but we need more specifics as to how that will be done. How various goals are weighed also needs clarification.

The authors should pay more attention to vital issues such as guardianship/conservatorship, where protection for a disabled person can all too easily become exploitation; self-advocacy, or being able to call out one’s own needs; and the significant use of the subminimum wage for disabled workers.

There’s little mention of assistive technology. And what about person-centered planning, through which people chart their own destinies?

The plan also lacks information that is specific for Black, Indigenous and immigrant communities and LGBTQ Minnesotans.

There are gaps in information focused on the deaf and hard-of-hearing communities.

Most importantly, the plan needs more attention to people with major disabilities and how they are best served.

A huge red flag is the sheer number of goals, probably too numerous for the plan to be successful. Nor do most goals meet the vision of a five-year plan. Many focus on 2027, with fewer in subsequent years.

Most troubling about the draft plan are comments from the plan’s inclusion consultants, people with a variety of disability experiences. The consultants brought a wide range of backgrounds and perspectives to the plan update process.

One key question they considered: What would make the goals more effective to improve the lives of Minnesotans with disabilities?

“It is unclear to us how the goals as written will create more belonging and inclusion in the community. Despite our efforts as inclusion consultants throughout this process, we fear that too many of the goals reflect what agencies can easily accomplish rather than the transformative change that disabled people in the state of Minnesota need,” the consultants wrote.

This comment on goals is troubling, given the various lived experiences of the consultants. It is as if their experience is less valuable than the need for state officials to check something off of a to-do list.

Another assessment is devastating: “The goals as currently written appear to center institutional convenience over disabled people’s actual lived realities. Low percentage targets, multi-year timelines, buried priorities — these are the signatures of goals written by systems about communities rather than with them.”

One goal is that by June 30, 2027, maltreatment of students with disabilities will decline by at least two students. That’s right: Just two, attached to the remarkable assertion that just 28 students with disabilities were identified and confirmed as victims of maltreatment in 2023.

As the consultants responded: “Two students. This would effectively reach 0.001% of the disabled population, and that number is just the tip of the iceberg — maltreatment only counts if it’s reported, which disguises the true extent of said maltreatment. If we want agencies to pursue investigations of maltreatment, this goal is counterintuitive.”

Such modest goals aren’t transformational, as Olmstead is meant to be.

In the context of disabled lives in Minnesota today, the draft plan is especially disappointing. We are years into a staffing crisis, with many of us unable get the help we need. Many of our community members also face food insecurity and housing instability. We live with a system of spend-downs, through which people limit income and divest of assets to gain needed services such as Medicaid. This prevents us from ever getting ahead.

And all of this was before the widespread fraud issues that threaten to suspend or eliminate the services many of us need.

That’s why disability services planning, in an inclusive and long-term manner, is so important.

That’s why Olmstead is so vital for so many of us.

That’s why we deserve better.

The Minnesota Reformer is an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to keeping Minnesotans informed and unearthing stories other outlets can’t or won’t tell..