A fresh round of spending cuts ordered up by House and Senate budget writers has officials at the state’s leading health and social service agencies sweating how they will make it all work.
The House Appropriations Committee last week approved an Omnibus budget bill that calls for a 5 percent across-the-board cut to most state agencies and programs, excluding education and public safety. Both those areas face lesser cuts.
The Senate Ways and Means Committee made some targeted cuts, recommended some tax increases, but also called for a 2.5 percent across-the-board cut to all agencies, including schools and prisons.
Lawmakers when they return to the Statehouse on Wednesday will be faced with at least a $350 million budget deficit. The proposals crafted last week by the House and Senate committees are the plans they will start with. Those will likely be altered some but no one expects cuts will not come.
Senate Ways and Means Chairman Jay Emler, R-Lindsborg, put it this way: “Bottom line is we’re in a world of hurt.”
KHPA
At the Kansas Health Policy Authority, officials say the tightened budgets will mean reduced ability to administer programs that are especially needed as the economy slumps and more people need services.
A 5 percent cut would mean the planned expansion of the state’s health insurance program for children would not be feasible, officials said. The Senate’s bill includes specific instructions that the HealthWave expansion go forward to include children in families earning up to 250 percent of federal poverty guidelines. But agency officials say the only way they could do that is if they trim reimbursements to doctors and other providers. The reduction to providers would be modest, they said, less than 1 percent. But many doctors and other providers already refuse to see patients covered by the government programs because they say they cannot afford to.
In either the Senate or House scenario, the agency forecasts layoffs and delays for services.
“This is a little like funding the purchase of light bulbs for your house, but not the electricity to turn them on,” said Andy Allison, deputy director at the agency and the chief of the state’s Medicaid program. “With the cuts in staff support and technical services, we’re not going to be able to process applications for benefits on time and we will not be able to answer every phone call from beneficiaries and providers. There will be an impact on both services and payments.”
New look at KHPA
Marcia Nielsen, executive director at the health policy authority, said the cuts will mean that the agency’s mission must be redefined. The agency that last year presented lawmakers with a sweeping, 21-point health reform plan and which was created to help develop health policy recommendations, will be forced to concentrate on running programs instead of also being an idea machine.
“It’s becoming clear that KHPA probably won’t be the same kind of agency it has been since its inception in 2005,” Nielsen said. “In addition to running the state health care programs, this agency was assigned the task of developing coordinated health policy recommendations for the state aimed at improving both the health and the health care for all Kansans. With these budgets, we simply won’t be able to do that anymore. We’ll have to focus on the core role of running health care programs as efficiently and effectively as we can.”
KDHE
At the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, officials said they were still trying to sort through the ramifications of the new budget plans and did not yet have a detailed analysis.
But in comments last week to a House Appropriations subcommittee, agency officials said they would be forced to scale back the coordinated school health program, which has been one of the main state efforts for combating childhood obesity. Officials said they also wouldn’t have enough money to continue clean-up of abandoned or busted methamphetamine laboratories.
Other agencies
At the Kansas Department on Aging, officials are looking at cutting meal programs for seniors and significantly reduced payments to nursing homes.
At the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, cuts are expected to fall hard on community mental health programs with longer waiting lists for services anticipated for those who are physically or developmentally disabled.
Meanwhile, legislators, especially in the House, show little appetite for increasing the state’s tobacco tax, which health policy officials say would be a natural for helping to fund various health-related programs and which a poll has shown would have broad public support.
-Mike Shields is a staff writer for KHI News Service, which specializes in coverage of health issues facing Kansans. He can be reached at mshields@khi.org or at 785-233-5443, ext. 123.