A Spokane program that cares for infants exposed to toxic drugs in the womb will receive $2 million in state money to help fund another year of operations.
Maddie’s Place CEO Shaun Cross says legislative budget writers agreed to another one-year grant as part of the new budget approved last weekend. Governor Ferguson must first sign it into law.
Cross says Maddie’s Place has helped more than 130 babies over the last two years to be weaned from the drugs they ingested in utero from their mothers. It has also helped parents with addictions to go through treatment programs.
Cross says he and other advocates were able to convince legislators the program is a cost-effective way to treat babies who might otherwise suffer longer-lasting health effects.
“I think the combination of all the good that we’re doing, the seriousness of the opioid crisis, was able to help us get through, and the efforts that we took, both our lobbyists and me, pushed it over the line, but it was far from guaranteed," he said.
Ohio program serves as a model for Maddie's Place
Cross says Maddie’s is now working for permanent state funding, similar to an appropriation granted this year by the Ohio legislature for a similar program.
"Bridget's Path (in Dayton) is doing exactly what we're doing. That is, they're treating the infant that's going through withdrawal after birth, but they're also providing a whole menu of services to the biological moms and dads," Cross said. "Bridget's Path got similar staffing, similar budget, around $4 million a year. They've got 75 employees.
"I think we have 85 employees. They've also gotten $8 million from the Ohio legislature. They've been studied by Ohio State. We've been studied by Washington State. So just tons of similarities, but they've been open for over eight years and so they've been at this a little bit longer."
Cross says the Ohio program has the advantage of bipartisan political support. That led to a passage of a bill in the 2023 in the Ohio legislature.
"That model goes into effect on July 1, so in just a couple, three months in Ohio."
Cross says he'll work during next year's legislative session to find permanent funding for Maddie's Place.
For now, he's piecing together money from other sources.
"In the last four years and four months, we've raised $15 million. This little tiny nonprofit that started, was incorporated in 2018. That's incredible. Of that, we've gotten $8.1 million of that $15 million from the state," he said.
"We got a $5.5 million pilot project funding in 2023 that we've been operating on for the past two years. And then that ran out June 30."
Cross credits Sen. Marcus Riccelli (D-Spokane) for securing the funding for Maddie's Place since the beginning. He says Riccelli urged this year to be modest with the funding requests.
"I'd been asking for $6 million for two years, and then I went on that down to $4.5 million for two years. And then he said, no, no, no, no. You know, so what's the absolute? So that ended up at $2.2 million, and we ended up getting $2 million, which is half our $4 million budget.
"He really told me how bad this was going to be, how concerned he was, and that I really just needed to focus on survivability for another year," Cross said.
"One of the really, really great things that happened with this current legislative session is there's 147 legislators in Olympia, 49 senators and 98 representatives. All of them now know about Maddie's Place."
