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13 search results for: Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals

1

When Government Is the Biggest Client, the Biggest Competitor, and the Regulator

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I don’t have any additional information about what’s going on with this story, but it’s one worth watching:

The doors were locked on Monday at St. Jude Home Care as the provider of home health-care services reeled from having its privilege to bill Medicare and Medicaid terminated as a result of federal and state investigations.

But owner Priscilla Pascale invited a reporter inside to say why she believes the government actions are unjustified and nothing more than “trumped-up charges” that are the result of a “vendetta.”

Pascale doesn’t say whom it is that has a vendetta against her, but she does claim that surveillance tapes make it obvious that the inspectors came in with the goal of finding something they could use to “take us out.”

St. Jude Home Care is “one of the largest providers of home health-care in the state,” which makes it one of the largest competitors to the state’s Dept. of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals.  That means it’s one of the largest competitors to the government labor union whose members dominate lists of the most lucrative state jobs, making many times their official salaries.

Supporters of the Rhode Island status quo or big government generally are sure to claim I’m peddling a conspiracy story, because it’s critical to their ideologies that government agencies can be trusted to be intimately involved with our businesses and our lives.  (Hello, IRS.)  Still, when government becomes a provider of services for which it is also a dominant payer in industries that it also regulates, it’s far from unreasonable to think agencies might act in their own self interest in ways that would be obviously wrong to those who aren’t part of the cult of government.

6

Are State Agencies Really “Overspending”?

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Unfortunately, we have to admit that this is nothing new:

Overspending by state agencies has opened up a $42-million hole in this year’s budget, according to new estimates from the state budget office.

The state departments of Children, Youth and Families; Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals; Labor and Training; and Revenue were among eight agencies over budget in the first quarter of the fiscal year that started July 1, according to a memo from State Budget Officer Thomas Mullaney on Thursday.

Some doubt is arising, however, whether we can really claim that these agencies are “overspending.” When departments regularly spend more than their budgets and the governor and General Assembly simply add money in a supplemental budget as the books come to a close and then audits come in much lower, it begins to look as if the departments are simply following the ordinary course of operation.

enactedvactual-2012-2019

For fiscal years 2012 through 2017, the state government increased its supplemental budget by an average of 2.4% and then actually spent an average of 4.7% less than that.  Every year, the state estimates that it is overspending and adds money to the supplemental budget.  The local news media for some reason tends to trumpet the increase from the supplemental amount to the next year’s final, which looks more reasonable because the bulk of the increase is in the supplemental.  All of this happens with plenty of fluff above the actual spending of the state, with a reliable 2.6% annual increase.

7

Coming up in Committee: Thirteen Sets of Bills Being Heard by the RI General Assembly, May 19 – May 21

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1. H5553/H5793: Repeals the sections of the law allowing “deferred deposit” loans to be made. (H Finance; Wed, May 20) According to the official description, this bill disallows pay-day lenders in Rhode Island.

2. S0574: Allows anyone who has been convicted of a crime and sentenced “to file a petition with the superior court requesting the forensic DNA testing of any evidence that is in the possession or control of the prosecution, law enforcement, laboratory, or court”; currently this law only applies to individuals who are imprisoned. (H Judiciary; Tue, May 19)

3. On Tuesday, May 19, the House Finance Committee will hear the department budget for the single largest major division in the state budget, $2.4B for the Executive Office Of Health and Human Services. (H Finance; Tue, May 19)

4. S0044: Provides a $13.97-per-hour subsidy (to be adjusted for inflation going forward) to “direct support professionals employed by private development disability organizations”. (S Finance; Tue, May 19) 1) It’s not clear from the bill whether this is an entirely new subsidy, or directly legislating something that’s annually done by the department of behavioral healthcare, developmental disabilities and hospitals. 2) As written, this seems to make state government partially responsible for paying the wages/salaries of every direct support professional employed by a private development disability organization in the state of Rhode Island; 3) Under some interpretations of current RI law, doesn’t this potentially become a “contract” that can never be changed?

5. Bud. Art. 14 sec.1: Blocks the legally mandated transfer of excess general revenue to the pension system, if the director of the office of management and budget determines there is a projected deficit for the current fiscal year. (S Finance; Tue, May 19)

12

Coming up in Committee: Twenty-Five Sets of Bills Being Heard by the RI General Assembly, April 14 – April 16

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3. H5819: 1) Outlaws stop-and-frisk police procedures by extending the current requirement that motor vehicle stops be predicated on “reasonable suspicion or probable cause of criminal activity” to pedestrians, 2) requires that, whenever possible, motor vehicle stops be recorded (but not making the recordings part of the public record), and 3) mandates that the department of transportation gather data on whether “racial disparities in traffic stops exist”. (H Judiciary; Tue, Apr 14)

4. Bud. Art. 11, sec 15: Creates a statewide property tax on non-owner occupied residential property, applied to properties valued at $1M or more.(S Finance; Tue, Apr 14) The odd construction regarding taxing the privilege of owning property rather than the property itself is slated to be removed by amendment (h/t Katherine Gregg).

5. S0296: Repeals the section of the law allowing “deferred deposit” loans, i.e. “pay-day” loans, also eliminating the provisions in the law that allow check-cashing businesses to automatically operate as pay-day lenders. (S Commerce; Tue, Apr 14) According to the official description, this is a complete repeal of pay-day lending.

6. Bud. Art. 29: Gives the Commerce Corporation power to issue tax-credits for large construction projects, with special provisions allowing projects in Providence — oh, excuse me; in communities with 150,000 or more in population — to be fast-tracked, allowing them to bypass local building and inspection requirements. (H Finance; Wed, Apr 15)

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