ARRM bills continued to move ahead today as the legislature hit its second deadline. This is the date by which all bills must have cleared policy committees in both the House and Senate. By next Friday, April 4th, all funding bills must be passed out of committee.
We’ll find out by Monday morning how much the Senate will spend on Health and Human Services – critical to having enough to spend for a five percent rate increase. Also Monday morning, the House Ways and Means Committee will make adjustments to its funding targets and take up the Health and Human Service Finance Bill that was passed out of the Health and Human Services Committee Thursday night.
Issue by issue update:
Rate increase: The Governor’s recommendation for a four percent increase was included in the House HHS bill Thursday night. The Ways and Means Committee could amend that Monday, depending possible adjustments in the HHS funding target. The Senate HHS funding target has not been released to the public. We’ll find out by Monday morning when the Senate HHS funding committee takes up its omnibus funding package. We’re hopeful that there will be enough to fund a five percent increase in one or both bodies. Keep in mind the Senate will also address other funding requests – all out of the HHS funding target.
We’ll let you know Monday what happened in the House and Senate committees.
DWRS: The Coalition’s bill to make needed changes to the Disability Waiver Rate System was amended today and then laid over to be included in the Omnibus HHS finance bill Monday. In order to move the bill forward in the Omnibus bill, the coalition had to demonstrate that there were no new costs in the bill. After a midday meeting with DHS, the provisions with a cost were removed from the bill, but the bill does remain basically intact. Negotiations on these and other provisions in the bill will resume Monday and continue as the omnibus bill works its way through the process. Ultimately, the DWRS provisions will be considered a House/Senate conference committee as the provisions are only in the Senate bill.
245D: Changes to 245D that were negotiated with many stakeholders were adopted in the House Omnibus HHS Policy Bill. Those changes will be on the table in a different conference committee on the policy bill.
Bed closures: The target number of beds that remain to be closed is down from 128 to 35, according to DHS. While we continue efforts on other fronts to get that number to zero by July 1st, ARRM amended the House Omnibus Finance Bill yesterday to make sure that, if any beds were to be involuntarily closed, DHS would have to work with providers and counties first. The amendment also establishes criteria so that we can identify beds that have been open for more than a year in service sites with adequate funding, despite the open bed.
Keep in mind that DHS has said it has ”no interest in pursuing forced bed closures. Bed closures will be done as part of a planned process with individuals and providers who are interested in participating.” Sen. Kent Eken will offer the same amendment in Monday’s Senate hearing; Rep. Jim Abeler offered the amendment in the House.
Minimum wage: Negotiations between the House and Senate are hung up over whether to “index” future increases according to changes in the inflation rate. This minimum wage issue will be likely decided by legislative leaders, who are aware of ARRM’s sleep time issues – whether to keep that wage at $7.25 or pay providers for the new cost.
Addressing the sleep time issue is a long shot at this point. Should it not be addressed we will be in a good position next year to ask for covering not only sleep time hours, but the compression of wages with awake staff that would occur with a higher minimum wage. We have also become aware that some daytime staff among the membership are paid below the anticipated new minimum wage of $9.50 an hour (after a three year phase-in). After collecting and analyzing data over the summer, our legislation next year could also address impacts beyond sleep time hours.
Stay tuned Monday for breaking news on The 5% Campaign.
-- Bruce Nelson, CEO