Appropriations panel weighs where to protect spending as state funding tightens

The House Appropriations Committee met March 18 to narrow its list of spending priorities and decide what to protect or reduce from the governor’s recommended budget as state and federal funding conditions shift.

Committee members spent more than an hour comparing individual top-10 lists, seeking common ground and airing concerns about gaps in primary care, funding for federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) and the effects of changes to home- and community-based services (HCBS) and developmental waivers. Committee members also discussed practical problems in tallying and sorting everyone’s priorities and the limits of the group’s authority to change items that already appear in the governor’s recommendation.

“We know our healthcare is in grave danger, very fragile,” a committee member said, arguing that the panel must weigh which health-system supports to keep and which to trim. The panel repeatedly returned to primary care and FQHC funding, with at least one member noting that primary care appeared on roughly seven of the…