Written by guest writer, John-Paul Yates, Director, Public Affairs, Goff Public
Last week, both the House and Senate human services committees passed their supplemental budget bills. These supplemental budget bills are omnibus bills, collections of smaller bills combined together, generally along a single topic like human services. The human services omnibus bills this year are smaller than normal. This reflects the realities of this short non-budget session, the tied House, and a challenging budget outlook for the state.
While these bills face an uncertain path to becoming law this session, they do contain some good items. Most importantly, neither body included items from the Governor’s supplemental budget proposal which would have further cut disability services. The Governor proposed limiting residential service providers to billing only for 351 days per year, as well as capping annual inflation adjustments at 2% within the Disability Waiver Rate Setting system (DWRS). Thankfully, neither body included these items in their supplemental budget bills.
The other good news is that in their policy omnibus bills, both the House and Senate human services committees included language that will give providers and recipients of Individualized Home Supports (IHS-T) with more flexibility, and which reflects the reality of how these services are provided. The bill changes the hourly cap for IHS-T services to a monthly cap from a daily cap.
Over the next four weeks, the Minnesota Legislature will need to pass these omnibus bills out of their respective finance committees and pass them off the House and Senate floors for a conference committee to happen. Normally, it would be more of a formality that omnibus bills will make it through finance committees and their respective floors, but there are a few complicating factors this year.
—In the Senate, committees were not given budget targets, so while spending bills are being sent to the Senate Finance Committee, it is expected they may be slimmed down in that committee before going to the Senate Floor.
—Additionally, the Governor is threatening to veto spending bills that he thinks threaten the state’s future budget situation.
Lastly, we are still expecting to see a significant program integrity bill passed through the Senate in the last month of session. While much time has been spent in human services committees discussing the unintended impacts prepayment reviews and some other efforts to combat fraud have had both on providers and people who have experienced service disruptions. Despite that discussion, this bill has the potential to create more impacts for disability services providers and recipients of services than any of the human services omnibus bills.
While the funnel of committee deadlines and some tough political dynamics have shrunk the funnel of potential items that may pass this session, there is still a lot to pay attention to related to disability services in the last month of session.
Additional note by Living Well Disability Services: We urge everyone to continue to pay attention to what is happening at the Capitol as little has been agreed upon by the House and Senate. While this legislative session will end in May, the work continues and the solutions we need will not be met this year, or next. Rod Carlson, COO, has been with Living Well almost 40 years has seen a lot over the past four decades and says, “With so much at stake, we need to remain diligent in our advocacy. It feels like disability services are somehow always on the chopping block, and this year was no exception. In 2027 we face a budget session, and we must continue to contact our elected officials now and in the future. It is not too late to tell your legislators why you support disability services and why we need their support. It is important to note that we can and should be against fraud, but everyone should also be in favor of committing to support people with disabilities who deserve care from reputable providers.”
Use this link to find and contact your elected officials and tell them why you support disability services. Your stories matter.
Join our mailing list and never miss out on invites and information. Click here to get a weekly email! Email Adrienne at adrienne.deruyck@livingwell.org for more information about house openings.