Family Friendly Budget Briefing

The Budget process: The Governor released his budget January 21, containing the budget plus a briefing book. The story is not just the numbers but in the language of the briefing book.  After this, the legislature starts its work.  The various committees hold Joint public hearings, with members of both the Assembly and the Senate. They are there to hear from and question the Department Heads and Commissioners. Often there are opportunities during these briefings to hear from other interested parties.

At this point the Legislature has finished Joint Budget Committee hearings, (you can watch them here: https://bit.ly/2PBj6wU )

Now they are discussing what will go into the One House Budgets, each house submits their One House budget the first week of March. They are consulting with each other about their priorities before taking positions on what they want to include. Members send ‘sign on’ letters to their colleagues, to build consensus for their priorities, these then will go into their One House letters.

This year:

At first look the Governor’s budget didn’t seem that bad, it included:

• $5B for OPWDD 3 ½ % raise
• Items in it:
• $6B to make up for FMAP (Federal Medical Assistance Percentage) because to create the CCOs (Care Coordination Organizations) the state only had to put up 10% of the cost and the Federal government agreed to pay 90%. That 90% match goes away July 1 (reduced to 50/50) so to continue the work of the  CCOs the state has to make up the loss in funding.

• $ 66.4M (2%) for Direct Care raises for 1/1/2020 and 1/4/2020

• $30 M for services

• Up to $120 M in new money but it is more of a credit card than actual money sent to OPWDD

• $23M so agencies can pay for the mandated increases in minimum wage

MRT 2 – FIRST WAS 2011 (Medicaid Redesign Team)

The Governor announced that the current Medicaid deficit is untenable so he created a new Medicaid Redesign Team to look for $2.5B savings to come out of Medicaid programs. They are supposed to find ongoing savings not just this time; in other words, structural changes. The savings suggestions are due at the end of March so they can be incorporated when the budget is due April 1.

The agencies that are under the Mental Hygiene and Developmental Disabilities committee like OPWDD are supposed to be exempt from these cuts but there are no guarantees. The bulk of the cuts are to come out of Dept. of Health (DOH) Medicaid programs which includes CDPAP (Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program) a program used by many in the disabilities community.

CDPAP has been identified by the DOH as one of the causes of the growth in the deficit.  For that reason that program has been identified at risk of cuts by the MRT2.