This week’s Behind the Bar explores a service freeze affecting people with disabilities and an improvement in the unemployment appeals backlog.

While the money sits unused, nearly half of the 118 families surveyed for the audit said it was “hard” or “very hard” to get their child formally diagnosed with autism, which is a prerequisite for the aid.

State officials projected Wednesday that nearly a quarter of the state’s population will be enrolled in Medicaid, the public health insurance program, by the end of May as the state weathers an unprecedented economic crisis amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.