IMPORTANT Legislative Report #5

[Guest guest]

Please read below and contact the 2 legislators to thank them for increasing the budget for APD. Also, the CARD funding does not face a cut at this point (which is good news), however we need to keep on top of it when they get into budget negotiations. 

                                                                  Developmental Disabilities 

Legislative Session Report #5

By Kingsley Ross

 Summary: The fifth week of the 2012 regular session focused both on appropriations and substantive legislation for people interested in developmental disabilities.  The session has now passed the midway point.

Action during week 5:  The House General Appropriations Act (HB 5001) passed the full chamber.  The House is now ready for conference.

The Senate Health Regulations passed SB 1516 with a series of amendments and the bill now goes to the Senate Budget committee.

The Senate Health and Human Services (HHS) Subcommittee’s chair, Sen. Joe Negron, presented his budget.  He recommended $888 million for the Agency for Persons with Disability Waiver which is $78 million over this year’s Waiver budget.  He also recommended $100 million to cover this year’s deficit including the carryover from last year.  Here is a summary of the current Waiver budget in each bill:

 

FY 11-12

HB 5001

SB 7050

APD Waiver Budget

$810,437,372

$876,942,076

$888,411,791

FY 11-12 Deficit

NA

  $23,866,527

$100,317,748

 In addition, the Senate released it proposed Appropriation Act (SB 7050) including new proviso language that calls for transitioning as many individuals as possible in ICF/DDs (Intermediate Care Facilities for the Developmentally Disabled) to community alternatives to “maximize the reduction in ICF/DD occupancy”.  The Senate also introduced a proposed conforming bill (SB 7096) that is a stripped down version of SB 1516. 

CARD funding is identical in both budgets at $4.9 million and represents a continuation budget from this fiscal year.

The Legislature’s redistricting plan is now before the Florida Supreme Court which has 30 days for its review.  A law suit has been filed by the FL Democratic Party against it.

Anticipated Action in Week 6:   The Senate Budget Committee should vote out its appropriations act (SB 7050) and related conforming bills.  Informal budget negotiations are likely to begin between the subcommittee chairs Hudson and Negron in advance of the conference process.  SB 1516 has not been placed on an agenda yet but could be heard later in the week.

There is no substantive work related to developmental disabilities scheduled in the House at this time.

Action Needed.  Please phone or send email to Rep. Matt Hudson and Sen. Joe Negron thanking them for their respective appropriations recommendations.  Both recommendations represent a significant increase over APD’s current budget.  Their contact information is as follows:

 

First Name

Last Name

District Phone

Tallahassee Phone

Email Address

Matt

Hudson

matt.hudson@...

Joe

Negron

negron.joe.web@...

 

Background Analysis: 

At this point in the session, the sky has changed from severe storm warnings to partly cloudy.  On the bright side, the recommendation by Sen. Negron is good news and represents a real turnaround from the bleak predictions leading up to the Session.  The Senate, for the first time in several years, is higher than the House going into conference as it relates to APD funding but either recommendation is good for people with DD. 

Nevertheless, there is a clear indication that the Senate wants to spend some of their recommended increase on the waiting list. This sounds good until you realize that the reduction of expenditures to get to this point has been at the expense of services to existing consumers.

In addition, because there was no new money, to get to these increased amounts for APD and other priorities, there were, of course, some victims, not the least of which are severe cuts to mental health and substance abuse programs in the Senate budget.  The money to resolve these non-APD cut issues between the House and Senate will have to come from somewhere so we will have to be on alert throughout the remainder of the process.

The ICF/DD proviso language is also a potentially dark cloud.  There has been a suit by Disability Rights of Florida on the issue of people in ICF/DD’s wanting to be placed in the community.  It seems, however, more likely that this proviso is related to something else. It could be a reaction to the ICF/DD rate suit that the state has been losing up to this point. On the other hand it could be an attempt by the state to side step action by the Justice Department to enforce the US Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision similar to what the Justice Department has been doing to a number of other states including GA and most recently VA. 

Even the changes in SB1516 provide some glimmer of hope that the issues of custodial care may be put to rest by the end of the session, for at least this year.  The latest amendments delete the lists of “core” services and calls for an individual review of each consumer’s needs before their iBudget is finalized.  We cannot relax on this front either since the strike-all amendment has not been introduced yet and the appearance of SB 7096 provides another vehicle for the changes APD wants to make.

Finally, the control issues in the Senate appear far from over.  During the Senate Health Regulation meeting this week, on a non-APD issue, the leadership saw the need to temporarily increase the committee’s membership by two in order to insure the vote on a tort reform amendment.  While this does not directly impact developmental disabilities, it continues to show that the Senate leadership is going to unusual means to gets it way.

 -- Regards,

Ven Sequenzia, Jr. President

Autism Society of AmericaState of Florida Chapter

1 of 1 File(s)

House Senate CARD ctr recs v1.xls