Gov. Tim Pawlenty will release his budget next Tuesday, January 27th. The budget will be the baseline that the legislature will work off – and we expect it to include severe cuts to disability services.
ARRM staff and our Public Affairs Committee are now preparing tactics and messages for media and members to use in response. Because we expect him to take a disproportionate share of cuts out of health and human services – including provider rates and waiver slots – ARRM and ARRM members need to respond quickly with local legislators, major media and your local media.
If he does disproportionally hit health and human services to legislature needs to get the message to make cuts proportional across all areas of state government, and that K-12 education needs to be on the table.
We think the key will be human stories from families and caregivers. Thus, we will prepare targeted messages for:
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Families
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Caregivers
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Management and you Board of Directors
So please plan to have your machinery ready to get the word out to each of these groups related to your company.
Start think about how you would handle huge cuts – like 5% to 10% and the impact on people. Indeed, if the proposed cut is so big that you would have to fold up operations – be ready to say that and back it up.
As you know much of the discussion nationally and in Minnesota is about jobs and you may have already had to lay off people. If so that’s an important message. And we’ll remind you that a 10 percent cut in state money will be a 20 percent cut to you, due to the federal Medicaid match.
Yesterday a number of health and human services advocates met with House Health Care and Human Services Finance Division Chair Tom Huntley (DFL-Duluth), who stressed the importance of making your and our comments about people – the care they get and jobs.
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