April 25, 2002

Nothing moved on the SRS proposal last night, except a concern from the
Senate that the "package" that the House is proposing was never passed by the
House.  This is where it gets very confusing.

You recall earlier in the session that there were two or three budgets.  The
"green book" budget is the one that the Governor had to give to show a
balanced budget, but one with deep cuts.

That is the budget that has been used to craft the House and Senate Budget
bills that are being debated this week. So even if we get the $1.1 million
dollar increase that the House passed in their budget for the PD Waiver, all
that will do is get us back up to the 2002 amount of money.  No "new" or
additional dollars for the waiver.

The other proposals that House made yesterday would also just get us all back
to where we were in 2002.  The DD and MH Grants would simply not be reduced,
the transportation services would be available as they were in 2002.  But
don't look for those to make it into the final package.

It was a great effort on the part of the House, but not likely to pass.

Same thing happened on K-12 finance. For half a day they got a $10.00
increase and by last night it was gone again!

The game continues today at 10:00. We may be asking for your advocacy soon on
getting us back to the 02 funding for PD Waiver, since that did pass on the
House floor, BUT PLEASE DON'T DO ANYTHING YET!  WE WILL CONTACT YOU!

Thanks, I appreciate all the kind messages.  Shannon, Jay Arnold, Josie and
all of us are appreciative of your support. You're doing the real work every
day!

Gina

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