A last-minute addition to the budget is one of the biggest ticket items: roughly $2.2 million to pay for wage increases for home health care workers. The Shumlin administration reached a tentative deal with the newly unionized providers on April 30.
Conference committee members were not pleased with the timing, but Secretary of Administration Jeb Spaulding said Wednesday they should have expected it.
“Everybody should have known about it because they passed a law last year that told us to do it. So it’s not a complete surprise to people,” Spaulding said. He added that he was relieved to have struck a deal before the legislative session ended.
Jim Reardon, Department of Finance and Management commissioner, laid out a suggested path on Wednesday for paying the higher wages. It did not go over particularly well.
Reardon proposed assigning about $350,000 from money the state saves by keeping people out of nursing homes through the Choices for Care program. Another $450,000 could be redirected from a federal research and development tax credit. The bulk — up to $1.75 million — would come from a 0.1 percent assessment on insurance claims.
The House Appropriations Committee roundly rejected a much higher claims assessment proposal earlier in the session, Chair Martha Heath, D-Westford, reminded Reardon. She said her panel’s position was based not on dollar signs, but principle, and therefore they would not likely get behind a lower-cost scheme.
Conference members will debate how, or even whether, to fund the draft contract.
They also are debating whether or not to fund several positions in a variety of agencies, including the new state psychiatric hospital tentatively scheduled to open in Berlin in late summer or fall.
While searching for ways to fund items on a lengthy “wish list,” the Senate Appropriations Committee agreed that 56 administrative and support positions at the hospital seemed excessive for a direct care staff of 127. The full chamber agreed to not fund three administrative positions.
But House conferees are resisting the trim. “We’re just worried about changing it up front and finding out that we made a mistake,” Heath said. The issue had not yet been resolved as of Wednesday night.
With the recent passage of state-funded pre-kindergarten, budget writers also are keen to build accountability and oversight into that new program. Senate Appropriations Chair Jane Kitchel, D-Caledonia, suggested building data specifications into Agency of Education requirements so future legislatures will have meaningful data on which to base their decisions about early childhood education funding.
