Contact Legislators During Their Break
The legislature is now entering a week-long break, with session scheduled to resume on Tuesday, April 7th. Key funding decisions are being made now and will continue on through the final six weeks of session.
ARRM, along with The 5% Campaign, is encouraging folks to be in contact with their legislators during this critical time. We are relying on our grassroots advocates to deliver the message that consistent staff is the foundation for quality care and now is the time to ensure that quality community services for people with disabilities and older adults are available, stable and sustainable.
There are a couple ways to be in contact with your legislators in the coming week:
- The 5% Campaign has put together a calendar of upcoming town hall forums that are happening around the state. These events, hosted by community partners as well as legislators themselves, are a great opportunity to show your support for The 5% Campaign and meet with your legislators in your district. View the calendar to see if there is an event near you.
- On Monday, March 30th, The 5% Campaign will be sending out a new Action Item for folks to use when contacting their legislators. This email will feature a hand template and will ask folks to write about the important work that their hands do in providing quality care. The goal is to have hundreds of these hands mailed to legislators for them to receive when they return on April 7th. Look for more information next week.
Session Update:
ARRM’s five bills have cleared policy committees while the House and Senate released their budget targets this week and Gov. Dayton unveiled his supplemental budget proposals last week.
Targets and Budgets: The House spending targets for committees included a $1.1 billion Health and Human Services (HHS) reduction from forecasted general fund spending for the next two years, starting July 1, 2015. The last forecast predicted how much would be spent if no laws changed. For the past couple months House Health and Human Services leaders have made commitments to increase rates for Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) and nursing homes.
So how can HCBS rates be increased with $1.1 billion in reduced HHS spending? There are many general fund accounts within HHS and some accounts – notably Minnesota Care – are booked separately from the general fund. So don’t be surprised to see reductions in some general fund programs and transfers from other funds.
The just-released Senate targets spend an additional $341 million in Health and Human Services in the next biennium. Resolving the wide difference between the House and Senate will include how other areas of government are funded, including E-12 education, higher education, transportation and tax relief.
Governor’s Budget Proposal: As reported earlier, Gov. Dayton’s budget doesn’t include additional funds for Home and Community-Based Services, but it does include $25 million for nursing home workers- much less funding than requested by the nursing home industry.
5% Campaign: The House and Senate bills will be heard in each body’s Health and Human Services finance committee. At the close of those hearings the bills will be laid over for possible inclusion and funding in the Omnibus Health and Human Services Finance Bills. By April 24th the chairs of these committees will make recommendations to their committee members on funding many HHS programs – within the funding “targets” set this week. Committee action may change who gets how much within that target.
Expectations: We’ve received a lot of bipartisan support from legislators, but no one has promised to deliver 5% increases in each of the next two years, as requested in our bill. And, to be honest, a rate increase won’t reach that level of funding. We are optimistic that a rate increase will be adopted, but how much and when it would go into effect are unknowns.
Minimum Wage: ARRM’s bill to pay for increased costs due to minimum wage increases for sleep time employees also await hearings in the HHS finance committees. They will follow the same process as the rate increase bill.
DWRS (Disability Waiver Rate Setting): Two versions of the DWRS bill were passed in the House and Senate HHS policy committees and referred to the Finance Committees with the understanding that the negotiated agreement between the DWRS Coalition and DHS will be presented as an amendment in the Finance Committees. Negotiations are ongoing with meetings as recent as yesterday.
245A/D Changes: The mostly technical bill to add clarity to 245A and 245D sections of law passed two House committees and awaits final action by the full House. The Senate companion passed the HHS policy committee Wednesday and was referred to the Finance Committee, although the bill has no cost.
Investigations/Sanctions: The amended bill would rein-in the issuance of conditional licenses to apply to the affected facility rather than an entire company and would clarify providers’ ability to “settle” on sanctions and instead of pursuing litigation. Other provisions in the introduced bill were dropped in negotiations with several of those issues being addressed administratively by DHS.
-- Bruce Nelson, CEO