Legislative Update - Less Than Two Weeks to Go Until Adjournment

May 5, 2008

With less than two weeks to go until the legislature must adjourn its regular session for 2008, lawmakers are buckling down and trying to come to a resolution on the remaining issues.

For MHHA members, the most relevant issue yet to be resolved is the budget-balancing bill. MHHA members can expect legislative updates with any breaking news this week and next week. Here is what we know as of this morning:

LTC Imperative Reform Bill
Last Thursday, the LTC Imperative reform bill, SF 3673 (Lourey)/ HF 3955 (Thissen) passed the House floor on a unanimous vote. We view this as a very positive step forward. This is an Imperative initiative that would create Older Adult Service Community Consortiums, and would pool together portions of existing funds and give priority in other funds to allow providers and communities to collaborate and develop proposals to fill gaps in communities with respect to older adult services. There are several differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill, however, the bill authors are already discussing the bill, and we will work with the authors to resolve the differences and pass the bill before adjournment.

Budget-Balancing Bill
Kari Thurlow, MHHA Vice President of Advocacy reported this morning from the conference committee for HF1812-- the Omnibus Supplemental Appropriations bill. Senator Linda Berglin (DFL-Mpls.) and Rep. Tom Huntley (DFL-Duluth) were presenting the spreadsheet that reflects the agreement that has been reached between the House and the Senate with respect to health and human services funding.

The spreadsheet showed that the conference committee agreement was to reject any cuts to long-term care funding. This means that the money that the legislature passed in last year's budget, including the 2 percent COLA for home and community-based providers and the money dedicated to nursing home rebasing would remain in tact under the conference committee proposal.

In addition, the conference committee is proposing additional funding for a 1 percent COLA for nursing facilities and an additional 1 percent one-time bonus for nursing facilities. This is the equivalent of $5.7 million in new spending. The committee is currently reviewing the language that goes along with this spreadsheet.

Reaching an agreement has not been easy for the conference committee. To balance the state's budget deficit, health and human services programs are being hit especially hard. This area of the budget had a negative conference committee target, meaning that at least $147 million had to be trimmed from existing state funding for a variety of health and human services programs in this biennium alone. In fact, members of the conference committee spoke at length this morning about the cuts to hospitals included in the agreement.

The inclusion of new funding for care centers, and the elimination of all proposed cuts to home and community based providers, speaks to the need in long-term care and the recognition of that need by the legislature.

Once the conference committee recommendation is completed, legislative leaders and the governor must still come to an agreement on the overall budget balancing bill. According to reports, negotiations are going well so far, although no final agreement has been reached.

Thurlow reported that it is rare for legislators to discuss the budget without mentioning the need for increased funding for nursing homes. The credit for our positioning this session, in the wake of a $935 million budget deficit, goes to MHHA members for all of their grassroots support. With two weeks to go, MHHA members need to continue to support our legislative champions who have risen to the challenge, urge the legislative leaders to hold firm on the conference committee recommendations, and urge the administration to support the conference committee position.

MHHA remains committed to providing you up-to the minute updates on all that is happening. Stay tuned for additional updates and action alerts.

For Further Information:
Contact Kari Thurlow at kturlow@mhha.com.

Aging Services thanks 2008 Annual Sponsor Weis Builders, Inc. and our other sponsors for their support and partnership.