Legislative Update – 4/18/2007

Hello from Topeka,

The Budget committees are back at the Capitol this week, and meeting as we speak…Just wanted to give you all a quick update from the House Appropriations committee,
Just this afternoon, the House appropriations committee has agreed to include all of the our issues from the Governor’s Budget requests!
This is really good news (for the moment…)
So, the items included are:

1. Funding for waiting lists:  DD and PD waiver
2. Additional 2.0 m (SGF) for the ACIL program
3. Rate increases for PD, TBI, and DD state grants…the 3% increase that SRS had in their original budget request
4. And, YES, ladies and gentlemen…they also included the $600,000 in Base Funding for CILs!

Please know that this IS NOT THE END, this is only the House committee, and the Senate is meeting as we type…so we still have plenty of work left to do…but for the moment we can call yesterday and today…good days!

Thank you all for your legislative contacts.  Just last night, during the House Social Service Budget committee, Representative Pat George, Rep. Jerry Henry, Rep. Barbara Ballard, Rep. Mark Rhodes and Rep. Tom Hawk all deserve a huge thank you from us for speaking out on the importance of our issues.

As far as all of your legislative contacts FROM HOME last week and early this week, thank you, I know Independence, Inc had some great conversations with their legislators, SKIL had a great visit at their CIL with Senator Umbarger (who knew them well, but figured out, after visiting the Center…that ‘this is the real deal’), and I know that the Whole Person had some luck with contacting their legislators.  Keep up the hard work…things are looking good today!

We will continue to update as the week progresses…

Jennifer Schwartz
Executive Director
Ks Association of Centers for Independent Living
214 SW 6th Street
Topeka, KS  66603
785-215-8048
785-215-8050