State budget includes significant cuts to nursing home reimbursement and other services; home and community based care funding is increased After a long and torturous process, Governor Granholm signed the state budget for the current fiscal year (October, 2009-September, 2010) almost a month after the fiscal year began. Despite the state’s dramatically reduced revenues, the legislature did not approve any new taxes or sources of revenue and instead slashed state programs, made what many including the Governor  consider to be unrealistic assumptions about expected savings in various programs, and plugged holes with one-time federal stimulus funds. Miraculously, in a year when everything was on the chopping block, the MiChoice Home and Community Based Care program (which provides nursing home level of care to people who prefer to live in their own homes or assisted living) received a $17 million increase in funding and Home Help workers will receive a 50¢ increase in hourly wages, raising most workers from $7.50 to $8/hour. Other programs were not so lucky. Medicaid providers including nursing homes face an 8% reduction in reimbursement.  Services offered by area agencies on aging and community mental health agencies will be significantly reduced. And many state programs that promote health or welfare were eliminated altogether.

     State officials are already looking ahead to the FY 2011 budget (which will go into effect on October 1, 2010) and the Governor has asked Department heads to consider how they can reduce spending by an additional 20 percent. These reductions will be necessary because of the continuing absence of sufficient revenues in the state, the unwillingness of the Legislature to raise revenues, and the absence next year of the federal stimulus money that filled in some of the gaps in this year’s budget. Campaign members have joined other advocates in supporting efforts to raise revenues in the state since the current budget is simply insufficient to meet the needs of Michigan citizens.

     ADVOCACY ALERT! CONTACT YOUR STATE REPRESENTATIVE AND SENATOR TODAY to thank them for preserving funding for home and community based care and urge them to continue to protect this funding in the next fiscal year. But also tell them you are concerned that cuts to nursing homes means fewer staff to care for very vulnerable citizens and demand that they ensure nursing homes provide adequate staffing to care for this vulnerable population!