Seems our fight is NOT over. The future is not looking bright for our children as schools, states, politicians and insurance agencies realize the long term expense of caring for individuals with autism and other developmental disabilities. They are fighting to pass the expense on to someone else and stall efforts due to bipartisan inaction. This is a human issue and I'm sure Democrat, Republican, Tea Party and Independent party families are united when it comes to getting care for their loved ones. Sadly, any party being right won't be enough when it comes to budget. Families can't afford care on our own, so our only option to is be LOUD and let politicians know that Autism and developmental disabilities are not just an in topic to mention in speeches to get the attention of our families, but a real issue, and we demand their support!
Write a letter, make a call or watch and see where the chips fall. I promise if we are not heard it will not be good.
Donna
Bill would yield needed funding increase for developmental services
In August, when the Legislature’s special session on health care and developmental services was in still in session, we criticized Democratic leaders for not bringing forward good bills by their Republican colleagues.
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| Sen. Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina, talks with Senate President Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, in this file photo. Hernandez is co-chair of the Legislature's special session conference committee on health and developmental services.(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli |
Now, with more than two months of hindsight under our belts, that obviously partisan inaction looks even worse.
If Senate Bill X2-4, by
Republicans Jim Nielsen and Jeff Stone, had passed and been signed into law, it
would be well on the way to producing the desperately needed 10 percent
increase in funding for developmental services that the Lanterman Coalitionsought in the 2015-16
budget.
But it’s not too
late. The special session is still officially “on,” with a Senate-Assembly
conference committee formed to address the problem. Unfortunately, that
committee has not held a single meeting.
If they continue to
ignore the one bill that provides hope for additional developmental funding
this fiscal year, Democratic leaders would doom nearly 300,000 of their most
vulnerable constituents to another year of shrinking services. After seeing their resources from
the state shrivel for two decades, that’s not what the developmental
community deserves.
Quite the opposite.
Californians with developmental disabilities and their loves ones and those who
care for them deserve the immediate 10 percent funding hike along with a stable
revenue scheme that will bring the system back to the minimum level of services
promised in the 1969 Lanterman Act.
SBX2-4 would sweep
unanticipated revenues — tax money above and beyond that budgeted for last
fiscal year and this one — into funding for developmental services and
Medi-Cal. It mandates that the director of the state Department of Finance, by
Jan. 10, 2016, and again by May 14, determine excess revenue, subtract the
amount that must go to schools under Proposition 98 and to the state’s
rainy-day fund under Prop. 2, and direct the rest to developmental services
until that 10 percent increase is funded, retroactive to July 1, 2015; any
money left over after that would go to Medi-Cal providers.
The 2014-15 fiscal year
ended with $732 million in unanticipated revenue, according to the state
Department of Finance’s July finance bulletin. In the first three
months of the fiscal year, the department reports, “Year-to-date
revenues are $744 million above the expected $22.855 billion.”
That’s easily enough
“extra” cash to give developmental services the 10 percent funding increase, which
would cost about $350 million.
So what’s the
problem?
The Legislature
should simply get off the dime and pass SBX2-4.
Sen. Ed Hernandez,
D-West Covina, failed to bring SBX2-4 forward to be heard as chairman of the
special session’s Senate committee. Now we urge him and Assemblyman Rob Bonta,
D-Oakland, co-chairs of the conference committee on health and developmental
services, to convene their committee and to hear and debate SBX2-4 while the
money is rolling in to state coffers.
Anonymous