Action for Children North Carolina | www.ncchild.org
 
June 7, 2013  
 
House Appropriations Subcommittee Budget Proposals Released  
 
Greetings!   

The House Appropriations Subcommittees released their budget proposals Friday morning. These are drafts, and amendments can still be made at the Subcommittee and Appropriations Committee levels. Amendments passed Friday afternoon in the HHS Subcommittee are included below; other subcommittees' amendments are not.

The full Appropriations Committee is scheduled to discuss the budget proposals on Tuesday, and the full House is expected to vote on the bill on Wednesday and Thursday. We will apprise you of any changes made to the proposals throughout that process.

Visit Action for Children's Policy and Budget Action webpage for a line-by-line comparison of the House Subcommittees' proposals vs. the Governor's budget and the Senate budget, or click below:

In general, the House subcommittee budget proposals took smaller cuts from most child-serving agencies than the Senate budget did. Here are some highlights:

  

HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES 

 

A provision in the House budget would eliminate the N.C. Child Fatality Task Force. Click here to learn more and advocate in support of this critical resource that has been saving children's lives for more than 20 years. 

  

Medicaid 

  

The bottom-line Medicaid cuts are very similar in the House and Senate budgets, with the House funding Medicaid slightly lower than the Senate in the first year and slightly higher in the second year. Both budgets include a substantially higher Medicaid rebase than the Governor's budget, and much steeper cuts to Medicaid. Some big-ticket cuts include provider rate freezes for some services, limitations on usage of some services, a change in the way prescription drugs are invoiced, and paying hospitals a lower percentage of their outpatient costs. As in the Senate's budget, children under 133 percent of the federal poverty level are shifted from Health Choice to Medicaid, per the Affordable Care Act. 

 

Unlike in the Senate budget, in the House proposal there is no cut to mental health drug management, no cut to private duty nursing, and a higher cut to hospitals. In addition, the House budget does not propose moving pregnant women out of Medicaid and into the Exchange, as proposed in the Senate budget. 

  

Child Development

  

While the overall cut to Child Development is similar to the Senate budget (about $4 million in each biennium), the plan is different. The House budget follows the Governor's lead and increases the number of NC Pre-K slots by 5,000. While the Governor's proposal used general fund dollars to fund the increase in slots, the House proposal would pull that money from the NC Education Lottery. Increasing NC Pre-K slots by 5,000 would in effect hold the program steady, because a Governor Perdue executive order that increased the program by 5,000 slots last year is set to expire soon. The Senate budget proposed cutting NC Pre-K slots by 2,500 in the first year and 5,000 in the second year. The House budget also does not propose moving funding for child care subsidies from Smart Start to HHS, as proposed in the Senate budget. The House does propose further limiting eligibility for the NC Pre-K program by income and risk factor. The income cut-off would be 130% of the federal poverty level, and the only additional risk factor considered would be belonging to a military family. Current policy includes developmental delays, serious health issues, limited English proficiency and other risk factors when considering children for the program. 

 

The House proposal would cut funding to county services by $2.5 million but would not replace state funds for child care subsidy with federal funds, as was proposed in the Senate budget. 

  

Public Health

  

Public Health is one of the few child-focused areas of the budget where the House proposed cutting more than the Senate did. Several proposals are the same, including cuts to Early Intervention (closing four Children's Developmental Services Agencies) and the State Laboratory. The cut to AIDS drugs is larger than in the Senate budget. Tobacco prevention is given only $1 million, for the NC Tobacco Quitline, vs. $1.4 million in the Senate budget. In the House budget, dental hygienists, technicians and oral health administrative positions are not eliminated, as in the Senate budget.   

  

Critical infant mortality prevention programs are included in the House budget, funded with federal dollars, including:   

  • $350,000 for the March of Dimes
    for preconception health (same as Senate);  
  • $325,000 for the ECU High Risk Maternity Clinic ($375,000 in Senate);
  • $250,000 to the Perinatal Quality Care Collaborative, for applied research to improve the quality of prenatal and delivery care ($350,000 in Senate);
  • $52,000 for 17p progesterone to prevent premature births in high-risk women ($47,000 in Senate); and  
  • $45,000 for the Safe Sleep Campaign (not included in the Senate budget).   
The Healthy Start Foundation and funds for a tobacco cessation program for pregnant women do not appear to be included in the budget. Several of these amounts were amended Friday afternoon in the subcommittee meeting. These are the updated figures.         

   

Social Services

  

The House adds more funds to the Division of Social Services than the Senate proposed. The proposals are nearly identical, including cuts to contracts and additional state funds to replace lost federal dollars. The House proposes small increases to the fund to help foster care children attend college, compared with the Senate's slightly more generous plan. But In addition, the House plan proposes two new funds to encourage local DSS agencies to finalize adoptions and improve permanency outcomes for children in foster care. 

  

Health Choice

  

The House proposal for Health Choice is nearly identical to the Senate proposal, with the largest decrease being the transfer of some children to Medicaid. The plan also includes additional cuts to Health Choice that mirror changes made in Medicaid:  provider rate freezes for some services, a fee for use of emergency services for non-emergency health needs, and a change in the way prescription drugs are invoiced. There is no cap placed on Health Choice enrollment in either plan. The House does not include a cut to the management of mental health drugs that is in the Senate plan. 

  

Mental Health

  

The House proposes much lower cuts to mental health than the Senate budget. The main differences between the two proposals are that the House does not propose closing three Alcohol and Drug Treatment Centers and does not close Wright School, for children with mental health and behavioral disorders. As in the Senate budget, funds are included for the N.C. Child Treatment Program (for children dealing with trauma), and for a statewide telepsychiatry phone line to help reduce stress on emergency room departments (in the House budget, the funds for the phone line show up in the Division of Central Management).

  

K-12 EDUCATION

  

Overall cuts to public education are much lower in the House Education Subcommittee budget proposal than in the Senate's plan: $79.3 million (House) vs. $135.2 million (Senate) in 2013-14 and $66.9 million (House) vs. $78.5 million (Senate) in 2014-15. 

  

The budget does not propose to eliminate the annual LEA adjustment (where local school districts return a certain amount of funding back to the state) like the Senate budget did, so there are fewer cuts to classroom teacher allotments and teaching assistants in the House budget. There is still a $25 million cut to teaching assistants, which would leave aides in grades K-3 (as opposed to only grades K-1 in the Senate budget), but there are no cuts to classroom teachers or instructional support personnel. There are similar cuts to the Senate budget in instructional supplies and school bus replacement funds. The cut to Limited English Proficiency students is lower than in the Senate's budget, and responsibility and funding for teachers at juvenile facilities is not transferred from Public Safety to DPI, as it is in the Senate budget. As in the Senate's budget, funding is allotted for the Excellent Public Schools Act.   

  

State support for the N.C. Center for the Advancement of Teaching is not eliminated in the House budget as it is in the Senate budget, and the Teaching Fellows scholarship program is reinstated, rather than phased out as in the Senate budget. Teach for America receives some additional funding, though not as much as in the Senate budget, and the charter school office staff is increased slightly, like in the Senate budget.  

  

Several new initiatives are funded in the House budget that do not show up in the Senate budget, including:

  • $10 million in the first year and $40 million in the second for the much-discussed voucher program that has been making its way through the legislative process; (Those costs are theoretically offset by anticipated savings of $12 million the first year and $36 million the second year, assuming that students will leave public education to take advantage of the voucher program. Those anticipated savings are built into the budget proposal.) 
  • $1.5 million the first year and $15.8 million the second year to encourage LEAs to provide Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs to their students;
  • $12 million each year of the biennium for more school resource officers; (Unfortunately, the House budget does not include additional funds for more school counselors, social workers and psychologists, as discussed earlier in the session.)
  • $1.3 million in the first year and $7 million in the second year to incentivize career and technical education;
  • $2.4 million each year of the biennium for Education Innovation Grants;
  • $690,000 each year of the biennium to purchase four school bus stop-arm cameras for each LEA, to improve student safety and document drivers who fail to stop;  
  • $310,000 each year of the biennium for the Yadkin Valley Regional Career Academy;   
  • $62,000 to create an Educator Effectiveness and Compensation Task Force. (The House proposal does not include the Senate's plan to offer a $500 annual salary increase to teachers who agree to sign a four-year contract based on teacher effectiveness.)    

  

PUBLIC SAFETY, as it pertains to juvenile justice

  

The House Justice and Public Safety Appropriations Subcommittee proposed a very similar budget to the Senate budget, including closing Western Youth Institution, Lenoir Youth Development Center, and Richmond and Buncombe Detention Centers, though some of the savings estimates are higher in the House proposal. The same three high-level administrative positions in the Division are eliminated as in the Senate budget.    

  

There are some key differences between the two proposals. In the House budget, responsibility and funding for educational services are not transferred to DPI, and additional funding is not allotted for a new Western Multipurpose Group Home. The House proposes $1 million in additional funding to Juvenile Crime Prevention Councils to increase community programming for adjudicated youth, vs. $1.5 million in the Senate budget. The House also includes the Governor's proposal for a Safer Schools initiative in the DPS budget, which is not included in the Senate budget.  

 

  

A special provision in the House proposal calls for an annual evaluation of multipurpose group homes and community programs to determine if they reduce court involvement among juveniles.