I usually publish my annual Memorial Day column around this time, but with all the action in Charleston last week, I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about some of that.
If you’re looking at the number of bills Gov. Jim Justice introduced for last week’s special session and the number of bills that passed, it could be said the special session was a success.
We won’t go through all 15 bills that passed. Frankly, it was the drama around one bill that caused the most issues and nearly caused the special session to end without returning more than $188 million to two state departments.
Senate Bill 1001 returns more than $5 million to the Department of Health and more than $183 million to the Department of Human Services. The Legislature had made cuts to those departments, surplus appropriations, and other line items in the budget bill during the regular session in case it might be required by the U.S. Department of Education to cut a $465 million check for education spending to remain eligible for federal COVID-19 dollars.
Thanks to the U.S. Department of Education, the state received its second and final waiver from its spending requirements, so that $465 million can be put back into the budget. The state had $300 million left unappropriated for the fiscal year 2025 general revenue budget that kicks in July. Plus, the state is expected to end the current fiscal year with just short of $800 million.
With lawmakers passing a bill last week that will decrease the amount of money we put into our now $1.2 billion Rainy Day Fund, and with a possible trigger for another rate cut for personal income taxes likely coming in at between 1% and 2% for the next calendar year (which will be determined in August), the state will have some money with which to play.
But the health and human resources funding had to be restored because there are federal matching dollars that would have been at risk. The proposed base budget for DoHS alone was more than $1 billion for FY25. Before the split of DHHR into three departments, federal revenue made up more than $5 billion of DHHR’s budget for the current fiscal year. Most of that is for Medicaid.
However, instead of restoring that $183 million through supplemental appropriations to line items, the state Senate proposed a plan to put that $183 million into a reserve fund that DoHS can access and move money into its line items as needed. It can move as much as it wants, but it has to provide legislative leaders monthly reports explaining what the transfers are for. And any money left in the reserve fund after March 2025 goes back into the general revenue fund.
Officials in the governor’s office and Senate GOP leaders said the plan was the result of two months of negotiations and they had a deal with the House. That was news to some in the House, who preferred to take nearly $28 million of that $183 million and use it to fund provider rate increases for the intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) waiver program, the aged and disabled waiver program, and other waiver programs.
The state Bureau for Medical Services released a report last year recommending increases in the hourly rates for IDD, aged and disabled and personal care programs. Companies that provide some of these services are threatening to pull out of the state because of low reimbursement. Workers who provide these services simply cannot earn enough.
DoHS is on the record for not only leaving some money for IDD programs unspent, but also moving other monies out of the IDD program for other things despite the need to increase funding. The House wanted to mandate that DoHS use that $28 million for provider rate increases. The Senate said no, arguing that DoHS has the flexibility to do that if they want, and that with decreased enrollment in those programs, DoHS already has the money.
Under that logic, DoHS has had the freedom all along to increase IDD waiver provider rates and hasn’t. They understand they have a crisis on their hands and don’t seem interested in acting. And families might have to make the choice of taking on more of the cost of placing family members in state-operated hospitals, which might actually be the real goal here.
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Speaking of DoHS, Cabinet Secretary Cynthia Persily and officials with the governor’s office didn’t have a good week last week after WSAZ-TV and others discovered documents contradicting statements made by Persily about the involvement – or lack of involvement – with a girl in Boone County who later died due to alleged neglect.
DoHS has been openly hostile to the media. I’m privy to one email to a reporter where a communications person accused the reporter of being biased and being inaccurate. WSAZ Anchor Sarah Sager was literally yelled at in the halls of the Capitol by an official with the governor’s office last week after staking out a meeting where Persily was privately meeting with lawmakers.
My relationship with the governor’s office and many state agencies is good, but even I have probably eight out of 10 freedom of information act requests denied with the strictest possible interpretation. I’ve had the governor’s office deny me access to Justice because I brought along reporters from outlets they don’t like.
If there is one common factor I’ve seen, it’s that the executive branch takes things personally when reporters ask questions they find to be critical and negative. I can only speak for myself, but it’s never personal for me. I simply follow the stories where they take me and it’s the same for most of my fellow reporters at the statehouse.
The governor’s office, and particularly DoHS, needs to remove the chips from their shoulders.