Topeka ? Advocates for Kansans with disabilities on Friday filed a lawsuit alleging the state had underfunded services for the disabled by at least $300 million.

“Our case is pretty straightforward,” said Tom Laing, executive director of InterHab, a resource network for the disabled. “We want the state of Kansas to do what it said it would do.”

State officials, however, said funding to the state-federal program for the developmentally disabled had increased 66 percent in the past five years.

“The increases have been pretty significant,” Gov. Bill Graves’ budget director Duane Goossen said.

InterHab officials say those increases cover the growing number of people served but have not kept up with rate increases needed by the community-service providers.

InterHab seeks $88 million for the current fiscal year, and said the total underpayment was at least $300 million since 1996.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of thousands of Kansans with disabilities by groups that provide services throughout the state. Lawrence’s Cottonwood Inc., which serves 484 people in Douglas and Jefferson counties, is represented by InterHab.

The suit alleges that Kansas officials have violated a 1996 law that outlined the state’s funding responsibilities.

Bill Craig, father of an adult son with severe disabilities, displays state data on disabled Kansans at a news conference in Topeka. He and representatives of InterHab, a resource network for the disabled, announced a 00 million lawsuit against the state, claiming the state had failed to fund services for the disabled.

“I heard this promise made and I believed it,” said Bill Craig, president of a community-service provider in Paola and father of an adult son with severe disabilities. But, he said, his hopes for adequate funding “have dimmed with each passing year of state inaction as political leaders seem to be frozen in the ice of their own indifference.”

Rodney Murrow of Lenexa, an attorney representing InterHab, said state officials hadn’t performed required studies to ensure the adequacy of reimbursement rates to community-service providers.

“Few things could better illustrate the state’s indifference toward its legal duty to our most vulnerable citizens than the fact that the state wasn’t even interested enough to find out the amount of funding it was legally required to provide,” Murrow said.

InterHab said the reimbursement rate from the state remained relatively static over seven years while inflation rose 30 percent.

Wages for direct-care workers have increased 7 percent over the past nine years, while personal income in Kansas has increased 73 percent during the same period, attorneys said. Currently, the state pays workers who provide direct care to the disabled $7.68 an hour.

At that level, the groups say they have difficulty retaining employees, which in turn leads to a waiting list of about 1,500 people to receive services.

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Peggy Wallert, director of community development for Cottonwood Inc., said salary concerns for direct-care workers were a big problem.

She said Cottonwood supported InterHab’s effort. While Cottonwood is not a named plaintiff in the lawsuit, it is seeking status as part of a class-action group that would be included in the lawsuit.

InterHab also said that because the state had shortchanged disabled services, it had “squandered” the ability to access millions of dollars in federal funds because every dollar in state funding for the programs draws $1.50 in federal funds.