 |
MGH Community News |
|
MGH Community News |
| April 2015 | Volume 19 • Issue 4 - Supplement |
Special State Budget Process Supplement: FY16 House Ways and Means Proposal
Sections:
The Massachusetts House Committee on Ways and Means ("HWM" or "House Ways and Means") unveiled its fiscal year 2016 budget recommendations for the Commonwealth this month. This $38 billion budget marks the next step on the path to developing the state budget for the fiscal year that will begin on July 1, 2015. The House passed the budget with some amendments on April 29. Next the Senate will release its proposal and the two chambers will conference and then send the joint proposal to the Governor who can sign or veto individual provisions. Among the new investments proposed in the House plan, small in the sweep of a $38 billion budget, are $10.1 million targeted at substance abuse prevention and treatment, including new beds in recovery programs. There are also new efforts at addressing homelessness. And there is $5 million for new early education child care vouchers to move an estimated 833 kids in low-income families off a wait list for subsidized education and care. While a good thing, there are 20 times as many kids waiting (a total of 16,000). The HWM budget also proposes new cuts to some important programs including workforce training for low income parents and youth jobs and violence prevention efforts. Ultimately, according to the left-leaning think tank Mass Budget and Policy Center, the shortcomings of this budget proposal reflect ongoing challenges that our Commonwealth has faced for more than a decade after cutting the income tax by over $3 billion dollars between 1998 and 2002. Between 2001 and 2015, for instance, funding for higher education has been cut 21 percent, environmental protection and recreation (parks, swimming pools, rinks) has been cut 33 percent, local aid has been cut 44 percent, early education and care has been cut 24 percent and funding for public health has been cut 24 percent (all numbers adjusted for inflation). For entitlement programs like transitional assistance, funding levels are significantly affected by anticipated caseload levels. The “entitlement” part means that any qualified person who applies must receive the service. Funding for these then is directly tied to how many people qualify and apply. Caseload levels have dropped significantly in the past few years. The caseload for Transitional Assistance for Families with Dependent Children (TAFDC) dropped from 52,659 in December 2012 to 46,546 in December 2013. That trend has continued with the caseload dropping further to 38,114 in March 2015. The caseload has been plummeting because of new DTA procedures that make it much harder for recipients to maintain their benefits. There are now more families in Massachusetts in deep poverty (income below 50 percent of the federal poverty level) than there are families receiving TAFDC. Mass Law Reform advocates are concerned that many more families will lose benefits when the Administration implements the welfare bill that was enacted last summer. The FY 2015 budget funded TAFDC grants at $255.7 million. FY 2015 projected spending is $251.3 million. The Governor’s FY 2016 proposal provided $229.1 million, and the House Ways and Means Committee proposal assumes a continuation of that trend providing $222.2 million, 3 percent below the Governor and 11 percent less than FY 2015 current spending. It is important to note that under this program, grants given to qualified families have lost more than half their value since 1988 due to inflation. Instead of decreasing the appropriation, HWM could have proposed increasing the value of the grant to help these children and families pay for basic necessities. For those families still receiving assistance, a clothing allowance of $150 and a rent allowance of $40 were not included in budget language. Both were included in the Governor’s proposal. The clothing allowance is a one-time payment made in September to TAFDC recipients to help pay for back-to-school clothing. Cuts to employment and training programs over the last 15 years have made it harder for parents receiving assistance to improve their skills, and get and keep jobs that allow them to support their families. The Employment Services Program, the primary education and job training program for TAFDC clients received a boost in the current year’s budget to $11.8 million. The Governor’s proposal provided virtually the same amount. However, the HWM Committee proposes slashing funding for employment and training programs to $5 million, 58 percent less than FY 2015 and 85 percent below the FY 2001 funding level. HWM also proposes no funding for Pathways to Self Sufficiency, another program offering job training to help TAFDC recipients get and keep jobs. The Governor proposed $3.3 million for this program. This program was funded at $11.0 million in FY 2015 budget, but it received two different 9C cuts during the year eliminating the program in FY 2015. In federal FY 12, Massachusetts ranked 51st of all states (including the District of Columbia) in the percentage of federal and state welfare funds that the state spent on education, training and work supports for welfare families. Emergency Aid to the Elderly, Disabled and Children (EAEDC) receives $81.0 million in the HWM budget, $4.5 million below FY 2015 spending, but $2.1 million more than the Governor proposed. EAEDC is a cash assistance program for individuals who are disabled, caring for someone who is disabled, 65 or older, in a Mass. Rehab program, and children who are not able to get TAFDC benefits. The EAEDC caseload is also going down, but not as dramatically as the TAFDC caseload. An increase in EAEDC benefits is long overdue: grants were last raised in the 1980s. EAEDC benefits paid while a recipient is applying for SSI are reimbursed to the state once SSI is approved, so the state would recover the cost of any grant increase for some EAEDC recipients. Department of Children and Families (DCF) House Ways and Means would fund DCF at $898.5 million. This is $27.2 million more than FY 15 projected spending, and roughly the same as ($2 million less than) the Governor’s proposal. This increased allocation consists primarily of almost $39 million to cover the cost of placing 1,000 additional children in foster care over the past year. The enormous increase in foster care placements primarily resulted from increased vigilance in the wake of publicity surrounding the 2014 death of Jeremiah Oliver, a child in DCF’s caseload. It also resulted from increased reports of child abuse and neglect related to the substance abuse epidemic that has affected MA and the rest of the nation. House Ways and Means does not propose a way to get out ahead of the current concerning trend of placing more and more children into foster care. It proposes no increase for Family Stabilization and Support services. These are the services that keep children safely at home by addressing the issues that brought them into the child welfare system in the first place. Despite the fact that 88% of the children in DCF’s caseload need family stabilization and support services to remain safely at home or reunify safely with their families, House Ways and Means would allocate only 8% of DCF’s services budget to these services. The vast majority, more than 76%, of the families in DCF’s caseload became involved with DCF because of neglect, not abuse. Studies have established that risk to children caused by neglect, which is highly correlated with poverty, can be effectively addressed by family stabilization and support services, and that children whose families receive those services, not only avoid the trauma of separation from their families but also have better long term outcomes than children in foster care. In addition, HWM did not include the Governor's line item for the expansion of the network of Family Resource Centers. HWM included $7.4 million for Family Resource Centers rather than the $9.9 million the Governor proposed. Family Resource Centers are an important means of addressing family problems before they become crises leading to child abuse and neglect and requiring DCF involvement. The Social Worker account would be funded at $201.5 million, just slightly less than what the Governor proposed. According to SEIU local 509, the DCF social workers’ union, the House Ways and Means allocation falls far short of what’s needed to achieve the 15:1 caseload ratios that DCF negotiated with its workers. According to DCF, as of March 7, 2015, it has 342 social additional workers. However, according to the union, approximately 450 more workers beyond that are needed to bring caseloads to the 15:1 ratio in the union contract, which is also the national standard for caseloads recommended by the Child Welfare League of America. The union estimates the additional workers will cost slightly under $30 million. In order to keep children safe, whether at home or in foster care, social workers need the time to adequately monitor families, intensively manage those that present risk factors, and make sound decisions about whether a child can remain safely at home or needs to be removed. They also need access to the family stabilization and support services described above. Under the HWM budget, One-Stop Career Centers receive $4.0 million, a 10 percent decrease from current FY 2015 levels. One-Stop Career Centers were initially funded at $5.1 million in FY 2015, but were cut by $618,409 mid-year. These centers help job seekers improve their skills and navigate the job search process, and they help employers find new workers. (Also see Transitional Assistance Section for Employment Services and Paths to Self-Sufficiency for TAFDC recipients.) The HWM budget for mental health is $15.6 million or 2 percent higher than the Governor’s recommended budget and just about even with what FY 2015 funding was before mid-year budget cuts. Adult mental health services were cut by $13.8 million mid-year in FY 2015, and while the Governor’s budget maintained that reduced level, HWM restores that funding.
The Department of Mental Health serves approximately 21,000 adults and children who have severe and persistent mental illness. The vast majority of persons receiving mental health services receive those services in the community, rather than in inpatient facilities, and the HWM budget restores some of the funding for the community-based services cut in the Governor’s proposal. Within the total for these services, HWM restores $1.7 million that the Governor cut from Recovery Learning Centers, which would have resulted in a 50 percent reduction for the state’s six regional centers. Recovery Learning Centers provide a wide variety of peer-to-peer supports including support groups, employment supports, health and wellness programs, and assistance with accessing benefits and services. HWM also brings funding for community placements up to $14.9 million from the Governor’s recommendation of $13.2 million, and includes $4.0 million for expansion of community-based placements for people in continuing care facilities who are ready for discharge. One of the strategies to reduce program costs is to ensure that the state steps up its efforts to pare down the MassHealth rolls as quickly as possible when people become ineligible for the program (such as when they have access to other insurance or when they no longer meet the financial eligibility for the various MassHealth programs.) This eligibility review, known as “re-determination,” is required by the federal government. Re-determinations are supposed to happen annually, but had been put on hold during the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act enrollment website. During this period, people were enrolling in MassHealth, but less likely to be un-enrolling.Like the Governor, HWM includes $16 million for a full year’s coverage for adult dentures and fillings for all teeth. HWM does not follow the Governor’s proposal to eliminate chiropractic services as a covered benefit. The House Ways and Means Committee (HWM) proposes a very small increase to Elder Services programs at $2.4 million over current FY 2015 projected spending levels. This one percent increase is likely insufficient for programs to keep up with the rising cost of providing baseline services.
In total, the House Way and Means (HWM) budget proposes funding disability services at $1.84 billion, a $78.3 million increase (4 percent) from current FY 2015 levels. The bulk of this total increase - $35.8 million – is for Community Residential Supports for the Developmentally Disabled, a 3 percent increase from current FY 2015 levels. Our state budget provides affordable housing assistance including vouchers to help low-income renters pay for housing and shelter for low-income families and individuals who are homeless. The HWM budget for FY2016 proposes $428.1 million for housing programs which is $2.2 million above the Governor’s proposal and is $6.4 million below the amount the state expects to spend in the current fiscal year. Since the onset of the Great Recession when many low-income parents lost their jobs and housing, the number of homeless families living in state-supported shelters has increased. By March 2015, over 4,500 low-income homeless families were living in shelters. Many of these families are living in hotels and motels because the family shelters are full. Often hotels and motels do not have adequate facilities, like kitchens, and are far from public transportation and other services. Emergency Assistance (EA) - The HWM would fund this program at $154.9 million. This amount, which is identical to the Governor’s FY 2016 proposal, is almost $37 million less than FY 2015 current spending. The HWM Committee budget for EA does not include the Governor’s proposal to prevent families who are couch surfing or living in unhealthy housing from moving into shelters (two sub-categories of eligibility that now cover ~33% of families in shelter). But neither does it include language advocates are seeking that would require DHCD to shelter to otherwise eligible families who are at imminent risk of staying in places not meant for human habitation. Both the HWM and Governor’s proposals increase funding for supports to help low-income families to stay out of shelter and remain in more permanent housing. Both assume that these supports will allow the state to reduce funding for EA. Previous budgets have tried similar approaches and have reduced funding for EA in anticipation of reduced need for shelter. But over the course of each year, the need for shelter has exceeded the amount provided in the budget and the Legislature has had to provide supplemental funding. In his budget, the Governor recommended providing $20 million to create a new account within the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS) to provide short-term, tailored assistance to help individual families stay in housing and avoid having to move into EA shelters. While the HWM budget does direct EOHHS to work with the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) in helping homeless families it does not create a separate account proposed in the Governor’s budget. Instead it increases funding for several existing programs most notably the Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program (MRVP).
The HWM Committee recommends increasing funding for MRVP by $18.7 million over the FY 2015 current budget and $7.5 million above the Governor’s FY 2016 proposal to $82.9 million. (Please note that this total does not include the transfer of up to $8 million of FY 2015 funding for MRVP into FY 2016 as discussed below.) In the last several years, recognizing the importance of helping low-income homeless families to secure housing, Massachusetts has increased funding for MRVP to create more vouchers and until FY 2015 targeted some of the vouchers to families living in shelters, particularly hotels and motels. The FY 2015 budget prohibited the state from targeting new vouchers to help homeless families move out of shelters. The new vouchers, instead, would go to households on the MRVP waiting list. The HWM Committee budget for FY 2016 recommends eliminating this restriction.
In addition the HWM Committee budget provides:
Education Transportation for Homeless Children The HWM budget would provide $8.35 million for reimbursements to cities and towns for costs associated with transporting students experiencing homelessness under the McKinney-Vento Act This would be an increase of $1 million over FY'15 expenditures.
Sources and for More Information:
|