Legislative Update – 4/24/2007

 

It’s not over yet…do ya remember the emails that said… ‘we still have a long way to go’  Well its all ringing true now.

Late last night the Senate Ways and Means committee went back through their budget bill that they had been working on since last week.  In the first run through the Senate had concurred with the House on all of our issues …funding for; PD waiver, DD waiver, Base Funding for CILs, Rate increases.  But as of now, the Senate Ways and Means committee has gone back and cut all of our items in half…

These are the numbers as they stand now:
     HCBS/DD              $2M(Senate)                (House has in $4M)
      HCBS/PD              $2M(Senate)                (House has in $4M)
Reimbursement Rates               $800K(Senate)            (House has in $1.6M)
Base Funding for CILs              $300K(Senate)            (House has in $600K)

In the remainder of this week and next we will watch the budget go to both the full House and Senate, and then the budget will be going to conference committee, so there is still a long way to go and many steps to take to continue to educate our legislators.

So, the point of this message is to update KACIL members.  We aren’t at a point of bringing in large groups of folks or anything, but we are now at the point to work on developing our game plan.  Right now we have discussed some tentative plans with CILs that are in areas where key conference committee members are.  Again, we don’t believe it is time for the larger groups to turn out…(hopefully we will get things taken care of before we get to this point)  If you all do have opportunities to touch base with your individuals legislators, I just want to make sure you are equipped with the information to talk about what’s currently going on in Topeka. 

I am also working on a draft letter on CIL base funding that you all might be able to use and send out to legislators in your area.  I will hopefully have this out to you tomorrow.

Please feel free to call or email with questions or thoughts.

Thanks!

 

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