COLUMBIA, S.C. - Gov. Mark Sanford praised the Disabilities and Special Needs Department Wednesday for shifting its priorities from funding programs to focusing on individuals' needs.

More than halfway through the governor's budget hearings, the department was one of the few health agencies that received compliments instead of complaints.

Currently, the agency uses Medicaid matching funds for most of its services. That's a major change from the agency's beginnings in 1993 when it relied on 100 percent state funding. The agency also has reduced its work force about 25 percent during the past five years and privatized many services.

Disabilities and Special Needs serves about 20,500 people with mental retardation, 2,100 with autism and 1,400 with head and spinal cord injuries. Because most clients utilize the services throughout their lives, there's limited turnover in the system.

The department has a budget of about $420 million, and about $140 million comes from state funds.

Sanford applauded the agency's voucher-like program that assesses clients' needs annually, then allocates money for those specific needs.

Those needs vary from $7,500 for daily support to fund an employee helping an individual at home while the parents are at work, to $65,000 a day to stay in a group home like the Babcock Center in Columbia.

People in the state offices often can't make good decisions about an individual's specific needs in a local community, said deputy director Bill Barfield.

Director Stan Butkus cautioned this type of service had to be phased in over five years, and it first received complaints from local disability boards who feared change.

But Butkus said the overall satisfaction surveys are coming back positive.

"We've made really good progress, but emphasize we're not there yet," Butkus said.

Butkus also made a pitch for an additional $5.3 million for next year's budget for an additional 300 beds at residential care facilities in the state. Currently the department has about 1,600 people who qualify for residential care, but the state can afford to step in only when there's a crisis situation, Barfield said.

Butkus also requested $3.8 million for crisis prevention to help family support services and keep people with severe disabilities in their homes, where it's cheaper for the state to care for them.

About 85 percent of individuals served are with family caregivers and just 15 percent are in residential care.

Although Sanford praised the agency, he did ask officials to explore other cost-saving measures like utilizing the Department of Corrections for vehicle maintenance and laundry services that already are privatized.