Although the state Legislature this year appropriated $9.4 million to bring more people with developmental disabilities into the state Medicaid program, the state Department of Health is refusing to spend any of the money.
State Health Secretary Alfredo Vigil says the spending has been delayed due to "several factors involving the economy, state law, and our duty to constituents ... (which prevents) us from doing so."
Two state senators who pushed the funding strongly disagree.
Senate President Pro Tem Tim Jennings, D-Roswell, said this week, "I have a moral problem with that. I was always taught that you take care of the people who can't take care of themselves."
Sen. Sue Wilson Beffort, R-Sandia Park, said the inaction by the Health Department is "disturbing" and is thwarting legislative intent. She said she and others intend to question Vigil about the developmentally disabled funds at the next meeting of the Legislative Finance Committee at the end of the month.
But Vigil in an interview Friday said while there's no question state services should be available to more people with developmental disabilities, New Mexico's dismal economic outlook makes that impossible. "It's not a question of good guys vs. bad guys," he said.
The $9.4 million in question was appropriated for the developmentally disabled waiver program. The program allows Medicaid money to be used to provide services for the developmentally disabled, such as daily-living and job-skills training and residential services, said Jim Jackson, executive director of Disability New Mexico. Jackson, who has been fighting for the funds to be used, said the state has been participating in the program since the mid-'80s.
It's considered a "waiver" program because it's not an entitlement program, Jackson said. States can limit the number of people served.
About 4,300 people are in the program, Jackson said. There is a waiting list of about 4,800 people, some of whom have been on the list for nearly a decade, he said. The money was supposed to be used to bring in hundreds of people from that list.
The Legislature appropriated $10 million for the program in a health care bill passed during a special session in August 2008 and the governor signed it. In a news release the following month, he said, "The additional funding will help provide services to more than 400 New Mexicans, both children and adults, who have spent years on the waiver waiting list which currently has more than 4,000 people on it."
This was before the stock market collapsed later that month. However, even after that, the administration was touting the appropriation as a way to serve more people with developmental disabilities. In a Nov. 12 letter, Vigil said the governor believed in providing services to more people with developmental disabilities "even in these difficult economic times and the department would spend about $8.75 million on adding more people onto the program.
He also said that the department would hire four new staff members in Albuquerque, at a cost of $750,000, and would spend another $500,000 to create a new data management system for use by all care providers.
But none of that happened. And on Friday, Vigil told a reporter, "The total budgetary picture is so bleak that any statements or commitments we had then just don't hold today."
In January, facing growing state revenue shortfalls, the Legislature lowered the appropriation to $4 million. In the budget bill, however, lawmakers appropriated another $5.4 million for adding 216 additional developmentally disabled clients.
But Richardson used his line-item veto power to strike language in the bill requiring the money to be spent to bring people into the program from the waiting list.
Months went by without any of the two appropriations being spent.
On Aug. 7, Jackson wrote Vigil. "It is unacceptable that, six months after a significant portion of the funding became available (the Health Department) has done nothing to put these monies to their intended use as directed by the Legislature," Jackson said in his letter.
"If every penny of the additional $9.4 million were to be used for this purpose, we believe you could serve nearly 500 individuals for all 12 months of (the current financial year.) Delaying the use of these funds ignores the needs of those on the waiting list and puts future funding at risk," Jackson wrote.
Vigil responded in a Aug. 21 letter to Jackson, saying the first $4 million was not marked "recurring" — which means that amount might not be available in future years. Vigil said his department and the state Department of Finance and Administration determined that because the money wasn't recurring it shouldn't be used for ongoing services.
Beffort, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, on Friday disputed Vigil's claim that the funds were not recurring. "We put that above the line," she said.
As for the $5.4 million from the budget bill, Vigil pointed out that Richardson had vetoed the language that made it mandatory to use the money for increasing the number of clients for the waiver program.
He also said the Legislature's allocation was based on an increase of federal funds paid to the states. That increase, Vigil said, was predicated on a higher unemployment rate, which amounts to "temporary funding" because the federal match will decrease when employment rises. His department projects that with a lower rate of federal funding, the state would need an additional $11.8 million to continue to provide services to people on the waiver program.
As hard as it is not to take people off the waiting list, Vigil said, it would be harder to give people access to the services only to have to take it away in the future.
Contact Steve Terrell at 986-3037 or sterrell@sfnewmexican.com. Read his political blog at roundhouseroundup.com.
