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Govt. Affairs

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Capitolwire: New Year Dawns Without Budget in Place

By: John Finnerty, Capitolwire.com Bureau Chief

HARRISBURG (July 1) – The new fiscal year started this morning without a state budget in place to pay for it and no obvious signal that the Legislature will quickly get a budget to the governor.

Late Thursday, Senate officials announced that the chamber won’t even be in session on Friday, though the Senate has plans to be in session on Saturday and Sunday. The House is scheduled to be in session Friday and Saturday, though at the close of Thursday’s session, Speaker Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster, reminded members to monitor their emails for updates on session days.

Despite the annoying aggravation of having to work through the holiday weekend, the broader immediate sting of failing to meet the state budget deadline doesn’t exist anymore due to a 2009 Supreme Court decision requiring that state employees must continue to receive their paychecks even if the budget hasn’t been passed.

Rep. Stan Saylor, R-York, the Majority chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said that not having a budget in place has little, if any, immediate impact on state agencies.

Gov. Tom Wolf has been pushing for a dramatic increase in spending while Republicans have been trying to get the governor to agree to rollback controversial proposals including the bridge tolling plan (though a Commonwealth Court ruling Thursday ordered that the tolling plan be halted) and charter school regulations.

Alexis Campbell, a PennDOT spokeswoman, said that while the tolling plan has been met with objections, the administration is still waiting for lawmakers to explain how to pay for the needed bridge repairs and in the long-term replace the gas tax.

“To date, the legislature has failed to offer any solutions beyond their approval of this P3 initiative, that will assist the administration’s desire to phase out the gas tax. The Wolf Administration continues to welcome discussions with the General Assembly on alternative funding sources that can replace the gas tax, which is no longer a dependable source of funding to meet all bridge and highway needs in this commonwealth,” she said.

Republicans say they are interested in restraining Wolf’s spending proposals in order to position the state to better weather an economic slowdown.

“Senate Republicans continue to work towards a budget that invests in the people of Pennsylvania and ensures the financial stability of the Commonwealth as we face economic headwinds due to the Biden Administration’s inflationary policies,” Erica Clayton Wright, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward, R-Westmoreland, said in a statement released late Thursday night.

Amidst all of this, former President Donald Trump weighed in earlier this week, issuing a statement in support of a poll watcher bill sponsored by Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-Franklin, and calling for Republicans to refuse to pass a budget unless it includes other election integrity changes.

Groups lobbying for election access have called for Wolf to veto Mastriano’s Senate Bill 573, and a Wolf spokeswoman strongly hinted that Wolf would veto the legislation, saying the administration “strongly opposes” the bill.

(Source: Capitolwire, July 1, 2022).

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RCPA has signed onto a letter to Congressional leaders of the Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Committee on Finance, along with 244 other signatories, outlining the need for parity in addiction and mental health care under Medicare.

As the President’s 2023 Budget and Senate Finance Committee’s bipartisan report has highlighted, Medicare is not subject to the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (Parity Act). As a result, Medicare beneficiaries do not have coverage of or access to the full range of mental health and substance use disorder benefits they need, and often lose access to treatment they were receiving prior to becoming eligible for Medicare. Although Congress has eliminated disparate financial requirements for Medicare beneficiaries, Medicare still imposes both quantitative (e.g. 190-day lifetime limitation on psychiatric hospital care) and non-quantitative treatment limitations that would violate the Parity Act. Applying the Parity Act to Medicare Parts A, B, C, and D is the critical next step to make mental health and substance use disorder services available and accessible to the millions of Medicare beneficiaries in need of treatment.

Read the full letter here.

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Only a few days remain before the end of the fiscal year, and lawmakers are close to finalizing the state’s 2022/23 General Fund budget. Because of your direct outreach over the last few months, our workforce issues remain among their top priorities.

According to reporting by The Associated Press: “… difficulty in finding workers to care for children, the elderly and disabled has budget-makers eyeing more subsidies for those professions.”

You have been tireless advocates for this issue, making lawmakers understand how this workforce crisis is affecting our most vulnerable individuals and families, as well as the providers and professionals who serve them. Let us build on this momentum.

With budget negotiations about to end, if you haven’t done so already, please contact your state senator and representative TODAY and tell them to increase funding to support human services professionals. And please ask your networks to do the same.

Time is of the essence right now. What happens over the next few days will determine the level of care individuals and families in need receive over the next year, and whether providers and professionals can continue to support them.

USE THIS LINK to learn how you can help. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay informed of our progress. Most importantly, TAKE ACTION TODAY. Tell lawmakers to increase funding to address the workforce crisis facing Pennsylvania’s health and human services. Thank you for your continued efforts and support.

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Our legislators are now determining whether to invest in DSP wages or place funds in the Rainy Day fund. Tell lawmakers to increase #DirectCarePA funding in the #PaBudget!

If you haven’t done so already, please reach out and urge lawmakers to increase funding to support human services professionals, so individuals and families in need get the support and care they deserve. Ask your networks to do the same.

Be sure to share our video on your social media pages, too. To share the video, check out our Facebook and Twitter pages where we have the videos posted. Be sure to “like” it and share it with your followers. Don’t forget to tag @directcareworks and use the #DirectCarePA and #PABudget hashtags so we can ensure as many people as possible see it.

It’s so important for us to share the story about how this workforce crisis is affecting individuals and families in need, as well as the providers and professionals who want to serve them.

Most importantly, TAKE ACTION TODAY. Tell lawmakers to increase funding to address the workforce crisis facing Pennsylvania’s health and human services. Thank you for your continued support.

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