TOPEKA — As lawmakers returned Monday for the 2009 legislative session, about two dozen people demonstrated outside the Capitol against a freeze in a program to help low-income Kansans with disabilities. “In terms of people’s lives, it’s devastating,” Mike Oxford of Lawrence, an organizer with Kansas ADAPT, said of the decision by the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services. On Dec. 1, SRS imposed a freeze and started a waiting list for the Medicaid program that provides home- and community-based services for Kansans with physical disabilities. SRS officials said the move was needed because growth in the program had “increased significantly, far outpacing the appropriated funding levels.” SRS said it needed to rein in spending because of the state’s current budget crisis and to continue providing home- and community-based services to approximately 7,000 Kansans. Lawmakers face a $186 million revenue shortfall in the current fiscal year, which could skyrocket to nearly $1 billion in the fiscal year that starts July 1. But Oxford said the SRS budget decision was shortsighted because it would force some Kansans with disabilities to receive more expensive nursing home care. He said as officials work on the budget “we want to make sure that we have a voice at the table, and that all other alternatives are considered as opposed to just cutting things back and freezing them.”