Just as most families, advocates and professionals were getting ready to join their families for Thanksgiving eve, the Secretary of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services sent a network wide email to the health and human service community announcing that the Patrick Administration expects the FY 13 budget to "
require cuts and reductions."
Bigby's announcement comes as a surprise to many in the human services field who have been monitoring state revenues which have continued to increase over the past two years.
Advocates have been counting on the Administration to honor its prior public commitment to protect health and human services from any further damaging cuts once revenues began to improve.
The Bigby announcement comes on the heels of the failure the U.S. Congressional Super Committee to approve a long range budget/revenue deal. The failure of the Super Committee did have a silver lining for Medicaid and Medicare programs, sparing those programs from the budget ax for the next two years, making the Patrick Administration's announcement this afternoon even more perplexing.
Bigby announced two hearings, the first on December 2 in Western Massachusetts and the second one week later in Boston.
The text of Bigby's announcement follows:
The Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS) will be conducting two public hearings on the upcoming Fiscal Year 2013 budget. Secretary JudyAnn Bigby, M.D., and the Assistant Secretaries at EOHHS are looking forward to hearing the views of members of the community regarding the agencies under their purview. The hearings will be held on:
Friday, December 2, 2011 from 3:00-6:00 p.m.
Department of Mental Health Western Massachusetts Area Office
Northampton Haskell Building
1 Prince Street
Northampton , MA 01061
Friday, December 9, 2011 from 2:00-6:00 p.m.
Agganis Arena at Boston University
Francis D. Burke Club Room
925 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston Ma 02215-1204
Since FY09, the Patrick-Murray Administration, in partnership with the Legislature, has solved over $14 billion in cumulative budgetary shortfalls. Because of several one-time revenue sources and the continued demand for services, FY13 will be challenging and require cuts and reductions and the need for the Administration to make difficult decisions.
To overcome this budget challenge, we will need to work together to reexamine all public services and their delivery and find innovative solutions so that we can continue our mission with minimal disruption. Governor Patrick, Secretary Bigby and all of us at EOHHS are seeking your input about the best ways to preserve core services to the fullest extent possible without additional expenditures.
Due to the number of individuals anticipated to attend the hearings, oral testimony will be limited to three minutes per individual. In the interest of time, representative panels are welcome and will be limited to a total of five minutes of oral testimony. If you need accommodations please call 617-573-1600 and let the receptionist know. Additionally, if you are planning to present oral testimony at the Boston hearing, please note that you must be in the building by no later than 5:50 p.m.
Written testimony is also strongly encouraged and may be mailed to:
Secretary JudyAnn Bigby, EOHHS
One Ashburton Place , Room 1109, Boston , MA 02108
Or emailed to: eohhshearings@massmail.state.ma.us
ADDP will be urging the Administration to spare the community disability system any further cuts and in fact restore many of the last four year's reductions and investment failures. ADDP will urge any spending reductions to be focused on the state's own administrative and service system and to protect the more cost effective and inclusive community delivery systems.
