By Dave Ranney, KHI News Service, December 20, 2010
TOPEKA — Newly elected Senate Majority Leader Jay Emler, R-Lindsborg, says he thinks Governor-elect Sam Brownback will be able to freeze current-year spending without having to make deep cuts in social services.
"I think that for Fiscal 2012, he’ll be able to not surpass the 2011 budget," Emler said.
"I don’t think there will be any areas where we’re required to spend money that he’ll have to cut," he said. "But that that doesn’t mean there won’t be transfers from other areas or from areas that are discretionary."
Emler, chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee for the past two years, was elected Senate Majority Leader on Monday. He replaces Sen. Derek Schmidt, R-Independence, who was elected attorney general in the November general election.
Also on Monday, Sen. Carolyn McGinn, R-Sedgwick, was named chairwoman of the budget committee.
Throughout much of the fall campaign, Brownback promised to freeze state spending in the fiscal year that begins July 1, 2011.
Emler, a member of the Brownback transition team, declined to predict which discretionary services – those not covered by federal mandate – might be targeted for reductions or freezes in Fiscal 2012.
"I can’t speak for the governor-elect," he said. "But he’s very much aware that caseloads are up and that we have an obligation, certainly, to meet those caseloads. He’s trying very hard to find that balance. He knows these are some very vulnerable folks."
Last month, state officials said projected increases in the state’s Medicaid and human services caseload would require an additional $49.3 million in state spending in Fiscal 2011; an additional $248.8 million in Fiscal 2012.
Much of the increase is driven by reductions in federal stimulus funding.
Services not protected by federal mandates include home and community based services for people with disabilities and the frail elderly, health care for the underinsured and mental health services for low-income uninsured adults.
In recent months, officials at both the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services and the Department on Aging have warned that without a funding increase of $11 million and $7 million, respectively, they will have to cut services to those currently receiving them.
"The governor-elect is aware of the good work that the HCBS (home and community based services) waivers do for the frail elderly, the physically disabled, and for the developmentally disabled," Emler said.
Currently, home- and community-based services for people with developmental and physical disabilities are subject to waiting lists.
Both waiting lists, advocates say, already are too long.
"It’s our hope that in putting next year’s budget together, (Brownback) will not overlook the 2,727 people with physical disabilities, who, as of today, have been on the waiting list since January of 2009," said Shannon Jones, executive director for the Statewide Independent Living Council of Kansas.
"These are people whose conditions continue to deteriorate," she said. "Many have died and many have gone into institutional care."
Nursing home services, Jones said, cost the state twice as much as those designed to help people with disabilities live in the community.
Sales-tax repeal unlikely
Emler said he doubted that recent calls for repealing the one-cent sales tax, enacted earlier this year, would have much traction in either the Senate or House.
"It would be shortsighted to try that since what you’d be doing, essentially, would be creating a $308 million hole in a budget that’s going to be difficult enough as it is," he said. "I would not anticipate that that would make it through either chamber — certainly not the Senate."
Emler said he expects "much discussion" on expanding managed care practices to include the state’s Medicaid-funded services for the frail, elderly and people with disabilities.
"There will be discussion," he said. "Whether something will pass, I don’t know. I suppose there could be some pilot projects to see if (managed care) can really do what they say it can."
Managing the care of high-need populations is considered by some to be a way to both improve care and lower costs.
Emler, too, said he expects Brownback to reorganize the Kansas Health Policy Authority, the state agency charged with administering the state’s Medicaid, HealthWave and state employees’ health insurance programs.
"There’s going to be some revamping," he said. "What that means exactly, I don’t know."
Currently, the health policy authority is a quasi-independent state agency. Several legislators have proposed making it part of the governor’s cabinet.