Dozens of people filed through budget hearings in the State House this week, most of them to decry proposed funding cuts that they say would hurt programs for the state’s most vulnerable citizens.
Advocates for children, single-parent families, the elderly, the disabled, and the sick all took their turns at the lectern during three days of debate about the Dept. of Health and Human Services’ budget.
That budget, as proposed by Gov. John Baldacci, would consume more than $2.4 billion of $6.1 billion in general fund dollars that the Legislature is considering spending over the next two years.
The co-chairpeople of the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee, Rep. Anne Perry (D-Calais), and Sen. Joseph Brannigan (D-Portland), both said that the real work of delving into the budget happens in work sessions over the next few weeks.
“We’ve been cutting for the past five years and we’re at a point where we really need to set priorities,” Perry said during an interview Thursday. “The budget is our biggest policy statement. We’ve got to find a way to create a system that fits what we want to do in human services.”
Funding for hospitals came to the fore this week, just as it did during the last few months when the Legislature was considering $140 million in spending in the current fiscal year.
The budget now under consideration is for the two-year period between July 1 of this year and June 30, 2011. The governor has again proposed reducing payments to critical access hospitals and hospitals that employ doctors.
“As a critical access hospital, we have absolutely no margin to sustain a further cut,” said James Donovan, president and CEO of Lincoln County Healthcare, in written testimony to the committee. “The proposed cuts would have a devastating impact on our patients and the communities in which they reside.”
Donovan estimated that the proposed cuts would lead to the elimination of patient education services and public health programming, reduce the work force and increase prices. Lincoln County Healthcare oversees Miles Memorial Hospital in Damariscotta and St. Andrews Hospital & Healthcare Center in Boothbay Harbor.
Also drawing extensive testimony were proposals to curtail spending for private non-medical institutions (PNMI), which include any agency or facility that is not a hospital, nursing home or health center. PNMIs provide food, shelter and treatment to four or more residents in a single or multiple facilities.
Bonnie-Jean Brooks, who chairs a consumer advisory board overseeing the community consent decree, which requires the state to provide a range of mental health services, said PNMIs are “under fire.”
“Providers on behalf of people with disabilities need more assistance, not less,” Brooks said. “Some people are holding on by their fingernails. As far as we’re concerned adequate food and shelter is not negotiable. This is not about luxuries and excesses but rather it’s about health and safety and what we want for all of our Maine citizens.”
Brooks’ basic message, a plea to support people who for whatever reason have no where else to go, was repeated over and over again.
Sen. Richard Rosen (R-Bucksport), interrupted testimony by Health and Human Services Commissioner Brenda Harvey Thursday to express “a personal frustration” he has with the process so far, particularly regarding the issue of the state’s overall philosophy in providing human services.
“The difficulty I’m having is to understand the big picture,” he told Harvey. “How do you come to your assumptions? What are you going to use for management techniques to be able to manage growth (in spending)?”
Harvey said answering those questions will be a focus of the upcoming work sessions.
“We’d like to give you the big picture,” she said. “We think we can paint a very clear picture about where we have needs, where we can manage well, and what we can do going forward.”
The Appropriations Committee’s public hearings on the biennial budget resume Monday with the committees on transportation, utilities and energy and natural resources.
(Statehouse News Service)