December 18, 2018
As we predicted in an earlier News Post – there is not much that is exciting for us in the amendments for this year. The “Big Picture” is illustrated with these
two slides from the Budget Director’s power point. On a smaller scale here are some salient points from the Governor’s presentation to the Joint Money Committees this morning:
- The budget assumes that the General Assembly will approve legislation to recoup revenues from Internet sales tax and that they will “conform” the Virginia Tax Code to the recently enacted Federal Tax Code. Revenues could pay for many thing, but first on the Governor’s list is to make the EITC fully refundable.
- Monies claimed back by the Federal Government because of the dispute about how to license/categorize Piedmont Geriatric and Catawba Hospital along with a significant underestimate of the possible savings which would accrue with CCCPlus are a large part of the Maintenance of Government segment of the pie chart linked above.
- There will be funding for “crisis response” which is important, but there is nothing for outpatient rates (which would help to mitigate the workforce crisis in Behavioral Health), nor the remainder of the funding for Outpatient Services which is required by STEP-VA.
- There is also additional funding for permanent supportive housing and community transition; both initiatives to help reduce the Facility bed census,
- There is also a proposal, that we strongly support, to end the practice of suspending an individuals driver’s license for unpaid court costs ans fees.
We will have a more in depth review by late tomorrow afternoon. In the meantime, we are working hard to ensure that the amendments for the DD Waiver Rate Refresh and the Outpatient Rate increase are at submitted in both the House and the Senate!