By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service
TOPEKA, March 26
The Senate and House budget committees have each passed bills aimed at helping safety-net clinics finance expansion projects.
Whether the bills pass their respective chambers remains to be seen.
“This is a good bill. If it gets to the floor, it should pass,” said Rep. Bob Bethell, chairman of the House Social Services Budget Committee.
“I”m certainly going to request that it gets heard, but there are a lot of bills yet to be heard and we”ve only got until Wednesday,” Bethell, R-Alden,
said. “So I don”t know, we”ll see.”
Wednesday is the deadline for consideration of bills not in their house of origin.
The two bills
Senate Bill 365 and House Bill 2547
calls for the state guaranteeing loans to safety net clinics for new buildings, expansion projects, renovations or new-equipment purchases. A vote on the Senate bill is expected Tuesday or Wednesday in the Senate.
The loan guarantees authorized in both bills would be limited to $3 million per project.
“Most of these (loans) are not going to be for more than a million dollars,” Bethell said Monday during House Appropriations Committee deliberations.
By guaranteeing the loans, the clinics should find it easier to borrow money. Interest rates, too, should be lower.
Last week, the bill stalled after the Kansas Development Finance Authority said lawmakers couldn”t guarantee the clinics” loans without putting a few million dollars in a special reserve fund.
On Monday, Bethell said a fund would be set up for handling administrative fees.
If a clinic defaults on a state-guaranteed loan, he said, the lender would file a claim with the Joint Committee on Claims Against the State. The committee, in turn, would authorize a transfer from the state general fund to the fee fund, which would pay off the loan.
Bethell said he doubted clinics” boards and their banks would put together loans that could not be repaid.
“Under the scenario spelled out in this bill, the chances of that happening are almost non-existent,” he said.
Last week, the Senate Ways and Means Committee reduced the amount of outstanding loan guarantees to a total of $15 million. It had been $25 million.
The committee also approved a change in the makeup of a committee that would oversee the loan- guarantee processes. The change ensures the Kansas Development Finance Authority a seat on the five-member committee.
Two seats will be held by the Department of Health and Environment; one by
the Kansas Health Policy Authority; one by a representative of the Kansas Association for the Medically Underserved.
If
the proposal becomes law, the Kansas United Methodist Health Ministries Fund has pledged $10,000 to help defray some of the oversight committee”s start-up costs.
-Dave Ranney is a staff writer for KHI News Service, which specializes in coverage of health issues facing Kansans. He can be reached at
dranney@khi.org
or at 785-233-5443, ext. 128.