February 28, 2002
AGING BUDGET
The House Appropriations committee on Aging gave it's report to the full
Appropriations committee yesterday. They accepted the Governor's budget (not
his enhancements). They indicated regret for the cuts in funding until such
time as there is more revenue.
They recommended review of long term care funding at Omnibus.
They are concerned that the Senior Care Act is under funded and recommend
review at Omnibus for additional funding. But then they say that if
additional funding cannot be found, they suggest taking funding from the HCBS
FE Waiver and use it for Senior Care Act. This means raising PASSAR
scores
to 50. Then the money they save by not serving people with scores under
50,
will be used for the Senior Care Act.
There are three problems with that.
1. It raises the score to 50, providing no services other than Senior Care
Act for the population over 65, but it also raises the score for all people,
including people with disabilities. It further would remove people from
eligibility to a Nursing Facility if their score is below 50, regardless of
their age.
2. There is no "Senior Care Act" for people under 65, and so they
will be
left with no services.
3. In a time where we are trying to get more dollars for services, they are
proposing giving up the 60% match for the $4.5 million dollars. They are
turning away an additional $ 6,750,000.00 in federal funding in a year when
we are cutting essential services because we don't have enough funding!
SRS BUDGET
House Subcommittee started hearings this week. So many people signed up
to
testify that they are carrying it over to next week. Testimony will continue
at 10:30 on Tuesday, March 5th and go to noon. It is in room 514S. At
1:30
they will hear from SRS staff on Pharmacy and Mental Health issues and if
time permits will continue on testimony.
They will continue on Wednesday at their regular time of 3:30 and finish
public testimony if needed. Then they will deliberate Wednesday and Thursday