Lifetime Citizen Portal Access — AI Briefings, Alerts & Unlimited Follows
Fiscal committee approves $5 million transfer for nursing-facility payments
Loading...
Summary
The Fiscal Committee approved a $5 million transfer to cover nursing-facility payments, with agency officials saying the request combines federal matching dollars, county contributions and state general funds and represents a final intra-year transfer for SFY25.
The Fiscal Committee approved a $5 million transfer to cover nursing-facility payments, the committee chair announced June 20.
The request, presented by Nathan White, chief financial officer for Health and Human Services, would move additional funds to pay both private and county nursing facilities. White said the transfer is funded “by a combination of the federal matching dollars, the county cap funds that are contributed by the counties, and then the remaining general funds.”
White told committee members this is the third—and, the agency expects, the final—transfer for state fiscal year 2025 to cover class 504 nursing facility payments. He said agency estimates first produced in August 2022 forecasted about $281,000,000 in class 504 spending, while actual spending in SFY24 was about $242,000,000. With the transfer approved on Friday, White said projected expenses would be “approximately 281,000,000.” He added, “So we don't we don't expect there to be these, high transfers going forward in the future.”
Representative Edwards asked how large the requested amount is relative to the total long-term services budget and whether the transfer was driven by an identified shortfall or by an opportunity to claim additional federal funds. White answered that the transfer responds to the combination of updated rate analyses and the agency’s most recent expense estimates, and that the agency had been holding off to avoid transferring more than necessary.
The committee moved and approved the item as presented. The motion was recorded on the floor as made by Senator Blaisdell and seconded by Representative Wallner; the committee chair put the question and members responded “aye.”
The approval completes the agency's intra-year fund movements related to nursing-facility payments for SFY25, according to the department.
Notes: The committee record does not include a roll-call tally in the transcript for this vote. The transcript identifies the motion on the record as FIS 25 1 58.
