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Special Budget Update - April 14, 2011

April 14, 2011

Disability Policy Consortium

April 14, 2011

Disability Policy Consortium
Special FY12 Budget Update

Dear William,

The House Ways and Means released the draft House version of the FY12 Budget today. The string of increases for the Department of Developmental Services continued. This time its an additional $10 million over the governor's House 1 or $19.5 million over FY11. DBCAN funding was restored and MCDHH saw its funding move back to FY11 level (almost).

Our spread sheet is available at the top of this page on the DPC web site for those of you who like to see the all details.

The Governor's attempt to consolidate line items was rejected by the House again. (5 for 5 but who's keeping score?)

Here are the quick numbers:

State House Access: no change at 138,476

Mass Office on Disability a pocket change increase of $17k.

Disabled Person Protection Commission: pocket change increase of $36,000

Mass Com Blind: pocket change increase of $20,299 over FY11 BUT a whopping $474,000 over House 1 essentially restoring the funding for DBCAN!

Mass Rehab Comm: lost another $100,000 for House 1 for a total cut of over $1 million since FY11.

MRC Housing Registry: Ways and Means restored the $80,000 for the Housing Registry run by CHAPA saving this vital Community First resource that Governor Community-Next-to-Last was willing to sacrifice.

Mass. Com Deaf & HoH: restored $242,262 keeping services at last years level.

Dept Mental Health: Ways and Means restored $6 million of the $21 million cut by the Governor but it still leaves DMH down over $15 million from FY11.

The House did restore 2.5 million for Clubhouses that Governor Community-Next-Last cut in H1! Thank you Rep. Dempsey.

Dept Developmental Services: Once again, DDS escapes unscathed. No sharing the pain overall within this agency although some key accounts are still short funded.

Family Supports was cut $14 million by the

Governor. The House recommended an additional $8.5 million for FS, leaving the line item short $5 million from FY11.

Talking Book Libraries: level funded

Here is what we know at this time (9 PM, Wednesday). We will send an Alert later todaywith details on calling or emailing your legislators.

Bill Allan

Disability Policy Consortium

wfallan@dpcma.org| 617-542-3822

Editorial: Beyond the Numbers

The brightess spots (for other than the DDS advocates) is the increase of $242,000 in Massachusetts Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and the restoration of $450,000 for DBCAN in the Commission for the Blind budget.

According to Commissioner Heidi Reed, this

amount "restores MCDHH's ability to fund the In-house Communication Access to promote Model Employer initiative and restores $171,432 to fund Independent Living Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community and Administrative/special projects personnel".

DBCAN was threatened with extinction by Governor Community-New-to-Last by a cut of $450,000 in H1. Ways and Means restored this with $24,000 more to boot.

Rep. John Scibak has been an MCDHH champion and Rep. Jay Kaufman has been one for DBCAN for years.

The agency had someone pulling or pushing very hard.

Amendments:

House members have until 5 PM on Friday, April 15 to file amendments.

We will send an Alert later today with details on calling or emailing your legislators.

4120-4000: MRC Independent Living

Rep. Ellen Story will file an amendment for at least $900,000.

4110-2000 MCB: Rep Jay Kaufman was prepared to file an amendment for DBCAN but that is not necessary!

4125-0100 MCDHH: Rep. John Scibak had expressed interest in filling an amendment to restore MCDHH funding. Since that has happened in the Ways and Means budget, we've asked him what he will do now. He said he will file an amendment and will let us know later today.

5046-1000 DMH: Rep. Ruth Balser is filing an amendment on behalf of the Clubhouses to get the additional $5 million that Way and Means didn't restore from Governor Community-Next-To-Last's budget.

Adult Day Health amendments will be filed by Rep. Alice Wolf and Rep. John Fernades. I don't have details at this point.

Rep Jim O'Day is offering 2 amendments that are language:

One will create an Assistive Technology Commission at EOHHS to take stock of all the AT programs and make recommendations to strengthen them once the economy rebounds.

The second incorporates the language of HB985 that will require reporting standards for hiring people with disabilities in the state vendor system.

Rep. Tom Calter, working with MSAD & the DPC, will sponsor an amendment asking for a detailed report on Communication Access utilization across the Executive Branch.

Preliminary Analysis: Mass Budget & Policy Center

The House Ways & Means

Fiscal Year 2012 Budget

April 13, 2011

With federal fiscal relief for states ending in Fiscal Year 2012, Massachusetts faces a budget gap of approximately $1.9 billion (the gap between the cost of maintaining current services and the revenue expected to be available).

The House Ways & Means budget proposed today closes this gap primarily with cuts and savings. These reductions affect virtually all areas of government, from health care and public health, to local aid, funding for education, and human services.

Preliminary Analysis: The House Ways & Means Fiscal Year 2012 Budget provides an overview of spending proposals in various areas of the House Ways & Means budget. MassBudget will release a more detailed analysis of the House Ways & Means budget plan in a Budget Monitor next week.

The report is available at www.massbudget.org or by clicking here.

Mass Home Care

from Al Norman

The bottom line is this:

1. Everything is level funded to the Governor's budget except a $1 M increase in home care Purchase Of Services.

2. No increase for protective services

3. Options Counseling language has been included (Equal Choice)

4. Fate of programs like Adult Day Health and Adult Foster Care are unclear. Outside section 98 gives the Governor the language he wanted to "restructure benefits" in many Medicaid programs like ADH.

SECTION 98. Notwithstanding section 53 of chapter 118E of the General Laws or any general or special law to the contrary, the secretary of health and human services may manage the MassHealth program within the appropriated levels in items 4000-0430, 4000-0500, 4000-0600, 4000-0700, 4000-0870, 4000-0875, 4000-0880, 4000-0890, 4000-0895, 4000-0950, 4000-0990, 4000-1400 and 4000-1405 by restructuring benefits to the extent permitted by federal law.

Providers Council: Workforce $$$

human services caring force

For the third year in a row, Beacon Hill is threatening to pass over members of the caring force, who make up the backbone of our Commonwealth's safety net - the 31,500 direct support professionals who care for the most vulnerable people in our communities.

Direct support professionals, like Samuel, earn an average of about $12/ hour and often need to work second jobs to provide for their families and remain in our sector. These are some of the hardest working and lowest paid individuals in the Commonwealth. Because of level-funded contracts, the salary reserve is the only way they can receive a small salary increase.

While the Council is conscious of the state's fiscal constraints, it is unconscionable to balance the state budget -- for the third year in a row -- on the backs of the people who provide care to one-in-ten Massachusetts residents.

We are grateful to Rep. Ruth Balser who is standing with our caring force and sponsoring a budget amendment to fund a salary reserve in the FY '12 budget. Please take a moment now to use our online advocacy tool to urge your representative to stand up for our workforce and co-sponsor Rep. Balser's amendment.
Retaining and rewarding a professional workforce helps ensure the continuity and quality of care for our clients/consumers. Rep. Balser's amendment will provide a $28 million salary reserve for the 31,500 caregivers who earn below $40,000/year, giving them an adjustment of about $18/week.

Please tell your legislators that three years is too long to make our caring force wait for a cost-of-living adjustment, even -- and especially -- during these challenging economic times.

Your voice matters. The only way legislators will continue to ignore our issues is if we continue to stay silent, so please speak up now!

Michael Weekes
President/CEO

Arc of Massachusetts:
Overall the DDS budget is short $25 Million through a combination of cuts and shortages in annualized expenses from 2011.

And we face a tough session with many cuts affecting public safety, local aid and human services.

With 47 new legislators there is much educational work ahead. As the budget now stands, hundreds to thousands of people are at risk of losing family support services, day and community living services this year.

The governor did announce positive news for special education in his budget announcement: funding for the Special Education Circuit Breaker is $213 million, an increase of $80 million over fiscal year 2011. The account had been reduced and offset with federal emergency funds at the start of the recession.

Here is how things stand with the House 1 budget document for the Dept. of Developmental Services (DDS).

Much of the DDS' line items have been level funded and Community Residential Services have received modest increases to serve individuals who transitioned last year from Community First and Turning 22.

DDS reductions include:

- Family support by 32% or $14 Million (M)

-Day/employment services funded except for those who turned 22 last year - $2.7 M cut or a little over 2% of that line item

-2012 Residential funding for individuals leaving nursing homes is missing ($7.75 M)

-Turning 22 has $5 Million for 2012-we appreciate the appropriation but with 708 students identified for 2012, at least $10 M. is needed for year 1 and $19.9 M needed for this year's students for a full year (annualization)

The DDS budget (despite the cuts) is higher than last year to accommodate union bargaining agreements, Turning 22 and Community First programs:

Turning 22 students graduate from special education programs across the state but are NOT guaranteed assistance as adults. There is no transfer of dollars from local cities or towns or Dept. of Education so the state needs to allocate new monies

Community First includes individuals leaving state institutions and nursing homes - these services means costs are reduced in other line items (either state school account or MassHealth skilled nursing facilities)

To address these additional costs, decision makers have cut into other essential services.

Read the rest of the story here.

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